Kirkepiscatoid

Today’s reflections center on “the tension between the catechetical and the mystical, the dogmatic and the spiritual, that is infecting every dimension of human life.”

Reflection questions:

2. In your life of faith, are you primarily committed to the “catechetical” or the “mystical,” the “dogmatic” or the “spiritual”? Explain.

I’m a mix. Actually, I’m an “evolving mix”. Growing up in a liturgical denomination, and also because I have a obsessive-compulsive overtones, I can remember even as a child of about 9 or 10 realizing in the middle of the Eucharist, whether it was in the Lutheran church of my youth, or in the Roman Catholic church of my best friends, “Wow, if I just stand here and DO this enough times, eventually I can BECOME it.” (Of course I had already “become” it, just didn’t recognize it!) The systematic “always the same” parts of liturgical worship hooked me. Yet I chafed under the “rules.” I realize now that I had discovered the mysticism that is in the center of the catechetical, the spiritual that is the core of the dogmatic, even as a child. I just didn’t know what it was, and the people who were more into the catechetical and the dogmatic tried to make me feel my disregard for the “rules” was bad.

I laugh even now how I commit little catechetical “acts of daring and defiance”. The big one is when I get the sacrament. Of course, I grew up not even being allowed to touch it. Then at some point we were allowed to get it in our hands but there was a big deal about exactly how we were to hold our hands and craziness like not closing it up in your fist and squishing it, etc. But as a middle aged person re-discovering my spirituality and a church community, I realized I had a deep seated need to “hold God’s hand” and so I began to close my hand around the sacrament and brush the fingers of the person handing it out, because at that moment their hand WAS “God’s hand.” There are some weeks my mind hears the collective gasp of the people in my childhood who would have had a cow over that, and I kind of grin inwardly with that little defiant grin that I have when I have gotten away with something!

What I am discovering now is that the mystical and the spiritual has always been with me, but that it felt separate from the catechetical and the dogmatic. These four elements are starting to merge inside of me and become more comfortable with each other. Up until a couple years ago, they felt like four separate entities lined up on two sides of the room. They are starting to mix and mingle a little.

2. In your life, is “feeling as important as thinking”? If so, what does that mean for you? If not, what role does feeling play in your life?

It’s becoming more so, although thinking is still a bigger part of me. For so many years I have suppressed any evolution of “feeling.” There was a place, I think, where I could no longer hold it all. The “feeling” part of me still grew inside of me, despite my not feeding or watering it...existing on the ambient environment...and I came to the realization that my armor was getting some pretty big rents in it. It no longer fit me. I got in the process of shedding the heavy old armor and trying on some lighter stuff—like trading steel for Kevlar. But I still am not ready to go “armorless.” Thinking is still a form of self-protection for me, and still a very integral part of me that leads over feeling. But the percentage of me that is “feeling” has changed a little.

I realize its role in my life at this point is to provide balance. Balance is important if I’m going to broaden my spiritual base!

3. Reflect on experiences where your feelings have moved you to act on behalf of others. Reflect on experiences where the feelings of others have changed the way you act.

The one that comes to mind right away is doing flood relief work in Iowa City simply b/c a member of my church was so personally impassioned about the floods in Iowa. She got up and gave an impassioned update on the flooding and about her old friends, etc. in Cedar Rapids that I could NEVER have done in front of everyone at church b/c it was too full of feeling. Yet it touched me in a way I wanted to be a part of the solution. So it is a perfect example of how the feelings of others changed me.

The one I think of where I was led by my own feelings was fixing the pews at our church. I was led by an inner voice to do it, and I just up and did it. It made me eat my own words. I have always made fun of the “disciples in the boat and Jesus says to follow him and they just up and did it.” I used to laugh at how unrealistic that was. Well, DUH. I’m guilty now of that too!