take up your cross and follow me

I find myself resonating more and more with Jesus' command to his disciples. For those who have answered the call, who have realized they've been chosen, this is the straight and narrow path that almost everything in our nature rebels against; I say "almost everything" because the depth of filial love and devotion can in fact cause us to lay down our life if need be.

Inspiring me this week on this path have been the reflections of a Sufi devotee going through his early awakening back in the early 1970's, a devotee who has since gone to become a teacher of many. I have been offered many things to read, but rarely pick one up. In this case though when I had read the first paragraph I knew I would be working with this for a while.

He traces in his own experience themes found in many mystical paths, that of accepting even embracing the wounded heart we all carry: the loneliness, the emptiness, the self-rejection; this pain we all flee from by way of distractions such as work, food, alcohol, drugs, sex, entertainment, sports, etc. He does so by accepting his teacher's instruction to not allow himself to follow any of these ways of constructing an ego, a sense of self based on partial identifications. Rather than becoming the doer, the person who strives for this or that pleasure, who pursues fulfillment in these ways, and becomes self-identified as a person who does this or that, as a Sufi he only focused on God and on being aware of this emptiness, not trying to fill it at all. This he found extraordinarily difficult as he was at that time both in love with a woman for the first time as well as devoted to his teacher; but he would not permit himself to ask them for anything, to need anything from them and so found himself in agony.

Eventually after suffering for many weeks some experiences of love and bliss began to break through here and there. As he described his transport of delight at a loving glance from a friend, or a sublime moment in nature, I remembered fondly my own sweet tendency to ecstacy a year ago, how easily I slid into an exalted state of love, joy and bliss. I realized that the metaphor so often used for transformational work and the spiritual path, that of peeling the layers of the onion, was quite apropro here for me. I have been through a number of successive layers of denying a certain ego gratification, of dropping a certain attachment to identity, and am currently going through one again.

The one that is now being dropped is my attachment to being the advisor, the wise friend, the one with the answers: oh how I loved this ego identity! Letting go of it is really quite depressing, both because I've kicked another crutch out from under my faltering sense of identity, as well as tarnished the memory of many pleasurable encounters where I was the man with the right word at the right time. Not that God doesn't work through us when we're "happy doing what we're doing" so to speak, for of course S/He does; but seeing my need to be needed outlined in such bold relief turns yet another worldly or self-centred fulfillment into ashes in my mouth.

At the same time I'm feeling more and more urgent about getting business going again; believing perhaps that it's finally time to make some money, to repay some debts, to get myself back over to Africa, etc. I have my brother continuing to say to me that he believes that my gifts are in the business world, not just on the path, so to speak. I don't know, but perhaps I've spent enough time in this desert of the ego, enough time dropping attachments, etc., that perhaps I'm ready to truly be "in the world but not of the world."

Let's face it folks, there is a certain something suicidal about the willingness to "take up my cross" and follow Jesus; to emulate him in every way. The willingness to take the via dolorosa, to be tortured, to fall under the weight of the cross, to be crushed, broken and pierced is yet finally the path of liberation.

We cannot have two masters, either we care more about what everyone thinks, we care more about our creaturely comforts, about our stuff, or we are in fact sold out, surrendered and living only for God. It's not that our Creator doesn't love all the children S/He has created, or that those who are merely good in a worldly or religious manner are not loved and accepted; it's simply that to be like Jesus is to NOT be of this world.

It is so confusing for Christians who believe they are following Jesus when in fact they are part of a religious club that has Jesus as its hero. Picking up your cross and following Jesus is not simply another way of saying that suffering is part of life, just accept it and know that Gop still loves you: No, it's far more radical than that.

Jesus didn't call Christians, he called disciples saying only those who were willing to leave everything behind to follow him were worthy to be chosen. When he said go and make disciples of all nations, he did not have in mind building churches in every country, nor was he trying to create a religion. He was saying to people one at a time, come and follow me, become like a little child with Abba (literally Dadda in Armaic) our Creator like me, be filled with the Spirit like me, leave the world behind like me and be my disciple. At his ascension his disciples graduated into teachers and were told to go and make more disciples in the same way: one at a time, person to person, heart to heart, so that those who could hear the call, who would one day realize they too had been chosen, would follow them, would follow Jesus, whatever country, language or religion they came from.

We are a light in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, nor can it. Those of us who see the light, through whom the light shines, are also not at home in this world anymore. I was realizing just the other day how much I missed "being at home." I've been such a married family guy in my life but have been on my own now for a few years; more recently I woke up while on my long reteat and realized I was called to walk with whomever I'm given to walk with, and have since given away or sold most of my possessions so that I'm free to go wherever the Spirit leads. I now find myself being like Jesus, not having a place to lay my head, a place to call home. This then is part of what it means for me to pick up my cross and follow him: I seek no worldly comfort, no place to call home, but instead walk as I'm led, with whomever I'm given. So be it!