Blessings in Disguise
by the Rev. Robert McCluskey,
Minister of the Swedenborgian Church in New York City
In the September, 1996 Issue of Our Daily Bread
Blessings in Disguise
by the Rev. Robert McCluskey,
Minister of the Swedenborgian Church in New York City
In the September, 1996 Issue of Our
Daily Bread
In Psalm 37 we read the words, "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security." What it doesn't say, is that although He will give you the desires of your heart, it won't seem that way at all to you at the time! And in Matthew we hear what sound like blessings in disguise: hunger, meekness, mourning, and persecution.
Some of the members of the youth group at the Community Church recently explored several questions about religion, among them: If God is good, why do people die; why would a powerful God create pain and suffering; how could God decide who goes to heaven or hell; what happens after death; why does God let people who are not guilty go to jail; and my favorite, why do we have to believe anything? These questions are not all that different from adult concerns. We all question the presence of God in our lives, the nature of spiritual laws, the absence of justice and the prosperity of the evil; we all feel some resentment toward God, reality, our circumstances; we all find, on some level, the concept of Divine Providence difficult to understand or accept.
Is life a royal pain, or the playful dance of the spirit? Is life a series of random, natural events, or an ordered pattern of love and truth? Where is God in our struggles? What criteria do we use to arrive at the answers to these questions?
Many of us are familiar with the teaching of our [Swedenborgian] church regarding the Lord's providence: namely , that in caring for us, the Lord looks primarily to what is spiritual and eternal in us, and only secondarily to what is natural and temporal; the Lord is primarily concerned with our spiritual well-being, and seeks to bring all of our external circumstances, good and bad, to bear on that concern. That is, the Lord does not will taht we should experience injustice or illness, but He allows it in light of a greater good. Today I want to share with you another insight of our church on the Lord's Divine Providence; why we are unable always to see the larger good for which the Lord is working in us.
Our reading from Swedenborg expressed a very different way of describing how God is present with us at all times. It says that He is hidden, disguised. It not only suggests that we are capable of misinterpreting the meaning of our experience, but also states clearly that we can never fully see or grasp the operation of the Lord in our lives in a clear, unambiguous way. This obscure, ambiguous sense of God's presence in our lives is part and parcel of our experience of free will, our experience of choice, and our ability to interpret the meaning of our events.
I asked before: What criteria do we use to evaluate the quality of our experience? Whenever we evaluate something, make a judgment, or seek to derive meaning from our experience, we do so in some context. We may or may not be aware of this context, but it determines what we can or cannot learn from our experience. For example, a child, who understands things primarily in terms of pleasure or pain, sees a candy store differently from his parent, especially if he or she happens to be a dentist. Each is operating within a larger context of meaning. We would say the dentist has a better or greater understanding of the situation, because the context is larger; the dentist is aware of other, often unseen factors, at work in the ingestion of candy, and so is able to make a more informed decision, one that leads to healthy instead of disease.
So it is with us when we evaluate and judge our experiences. In religious or spiritual matters, each of us can choose between two very distinct contexts or perspectives, natural and spiritual. Though we have gone over this before, it is essential that we always remind ourselves of this teaching, for its truth will never appear to our sense, and in spiritual matters, we are forgetful creatures.
The natural perspective, or context, from which we make judgments, is based upon our reasonings about experience. We observe what happens, think about it, and make a judgment: good or bad, right or wrong. This might be called a scientific perspective, in which our judgments are based on how things appear to the senses, things we can see and touch. Based on this perspective, we also develop a sense of who we are; our standing and worth in the world, and what we do and do not deserve. This "self-image" that we construct is referred to by Swedenborg as our proprium. From this perspective, I am the most real aspect of my experience. God is the least real )the least visible), and other people and things are real to the extent that they affect me. Things mean what they do only as they stand in relationship to me. From this perspective, we develop a whole system of meaning and value with which we judge ourselves and others.
It is from this natural, or sense-based, perspective, that emerges what Swedenborg calls the evil of our selfhood, our great desire for hell, that is, our longing for a form of goodness and truth that agrees with our self-centeredness. This is the evil that dwells within us: the natural self that would reject the Lord's guidance if it perceived it. It is the cause of our anxiety, our fear and uncertainty. It is the source of our prejudice, our judgementalism, involving us with ill will and misunderstanding, and leading us to misinterpret the meaning and value of our experience. This is because we so often judge from surface appearance only, and our lives are much more than they appear.
The spiritual perspective is based instead on our reasonings about revelation, the truths of heaven as opposed to the truths of the world. It is subject not to empirical verification, but to the light of truth within us. here we see ourselves not as isolated individuals, but as interdependent beings created to learn truth and share love. From this perspective, God is the most real aspect of my experience; other people and things are real to the extent that they reflect or mirror the Divine; and my proprium, the self-image I have created for myself, is revealed as the least real. Things mean what they do as they stand in relationship to the Lord, the source of all that is good, true and real. From this perspective, we can also develop a whole system of meaning and value with which we judge ourselves and others, but the results are quite different.
Our choice is always between these two perspectives; our reason stands between earth and heaven, between outer and inner experience. The natural perspective, the proprium, is constantly seeking to assert itself, to dominate; the spiritual perspective is constantly waiting to be acknowledged, in freedom, never making itself fully known, never forceing itself upon us. Nature neither affirms nor denies God; the question and its answer, come from within. And yet, we can never be sure of our answer. To say we don't know "what's good for us" is to say we don't completely know ourselves. This humble admission is the essence of religion; religion begins when we acknowledge our limits in spiritual matters, along with the limitless power of One greater than ourselves, when we open ourselves up to the larger context of the Lord and His Divine Providence.
Psalm 37 again: "Trust in the Lord, and do good, so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security." "To trust in the Lord" here means to trust in a presence, a process which is greater than ourselves, always beyond our ability to fully comprehend, and yet somehow made known to us. It means to be open to the Lord's providence, hidden from our senses, but revealed to us in Christ and the church, which is perpetually engaged in bringing us to new life, if we could relax our grip and allow ourselves to be led. (Letting go and allowing ourselves to be led are both difficult and important: "Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong."
This is not a blind trust, but a knowing trust, gained from accessing a larger, spiritual context. Trust in the Lord is only meaningful if we speak at the same time about a working knowledge or understanding of the ways God does week to reveal Himself to us; not through the sense, but in the Word, through the teachings of the church, and in our hearts and minds. Context determines meaning. Unless we have spent time with these expressions of the divine, our trust can only be blind, and ultimately ineffective. As members of the church, we are called to attend to this spiritual dimension, to learn of it from revelation and from our own spiritual growth.
Far from being blessings in disguise, the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 are quite simply rules of life in light of our spiritual nature and the revelation of the Lord's Divine Providence, which perpetually humbles the proud and exalts the humble. A disguise is a false appearance; as the church, we are called out of such false appearances, into the light of truth. God does not disguise Himself; rather, until we grow spiritually, we are unable to recognize Him. To the spiritual perspective, though, one that is humbly open to truth, the blessings of spiritual hunger and purity of heart, or struggling against evil and falsity, and mourning our losses, the blessing of poverty of spirit, are not disguises at all; for through them, God's presence is revealed to us, lifting us up even now, and exalting us.
Scripture:
When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to speak, and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Matthew 5:1-12
Reading from Swedenborg:
It does not appear likely that if the Divine providence and its operation were clearly seen by humanity they would deny God; for it would seem that if it were clearly seen by any one, that person could not but acknowledge it, and thus acknowledge God; yet the contrary is the truth. The Divine providence never acts in accord with the will's love in people; but constantly against it; since humanity, because of their hereditary evil, are always panting for the lowest hell; but the Lord by His providence is continually leading and drawing them away from it, first to a milder hell, then out of hell, and finally to Himself in heaven. This operation of the Divine providence is perpetual. Consequently if we clearly saw or felt this drawing or leading away, we would grow angry and would regard God as our enemy, and from the evil of our selfhood (proprium) would deny God. Consequently, lest this be known to us, we are are kept in a state of freedom from which we know no otherwise than that we lead ourselves.
Divine Providence #183
