I have thought about and written about the awesome reality that the God of all creation has called us into relationship, which means God desires and chooses to be present with us, in all our joys, grief, victories and defeats. Our job is to awaken to this reality and embrace and experience this loving, divine presence. I read something recently, however, that made me realize the truth that my relationship with God has been very one-sided.
In his book Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God, Jim Palmer, a former evangelical pastor, wrote about an experience he had as part of a mission trip to South Asia with an international organization that has taken on the task of engaging in operatives around the world to rescue victims of terrible human rights crimes, usually involving children. On this trip Jim witnessed the horror of young girls who have been enslaved and forced into prostitution as young as 9 or 10 years old. He had the opportunity to meet one of these girls who had been rescued and was now being treated for STD’s and emotional trauma. The face of this child and the horror of this tragic reality is something he noted that he will never be able to forget.
Feeling God’s Pain?
Reflecting on this horror show Jim naturally questioned how God can allow things like this to happen. He then had the insight that God is always present to these tragedies and is asking how it is that we can allow things like this to exist our world. It also struck him how this breaks God’s heart, and the pain and agony God must be feeling. Then Jim saw the truth that “I don’t really want a ‘relationship’ with God. Here’s what I want. I want to share with God all I feel, all I need, all that grieves me, all that makes me happy, the puzzling things, the fun things, and the hard things, but I would prefer that God keep his stuff to himself. I don’t want to hear about his pain and share in his grief”. Wow, this is so true, isn’t it?
Think about the quality of relationship with someone you love. You want to be with that person, try to understand and really know that person and experience life together. You are present and hope to share all the joys and wonders this person experiences. But you also enter their pain and grief and what they feel when life is harsh, they suffer loss or abuse or injustice. We try to do what we can to comfort, support and help the one we love, as well as rejoice and celebrate with them when good things happen. I wonder if being in relationship with God must be the same. Does God want and need us to be present and share in divine pain as well as joy? Does being the hands and feet and heart of God on earth mean becoming involved with God in the pain of those who are suffering and to be partners in bringing healing and transformation to them? To me, this perspective is very humbling and shows me how much more I need to grow.
The Developmental Journey
Jim Palmer continues to write about his evolving understanding and relationship with God in his blogs and subsequent books, especially in Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live your Life. This book does not align with traditional theology, butit is interesting to follow his development looking through the framework of integral philosophy and integral psychology. First, he described his struggle of working through his shame and coming out of the traditional Amber/Premodern perspectives of his church ministry and into the process of looking at his faith through an Orange/Modern lens. He calls this deconstruction of his beliefs, and he engaged in an academic exploration of the inconsistencies and core assumptions of traditional faith and the structures that support them. For example, he wrestled with the belief that God is love on the one hand and the teaching that those who don’t believe in Jesus are condemned to Hell on the other, regardless of whether they have had the opportunity to learn about and understand the gospel as taught by the church.
Later Jim had experiences that moved him into a Green/Postmodern perspective. He talked about growing relationships with people who practice a Unitarian Universalist faith and those who practice other faiths like Buddhism. What he discovered was common core practices and principles grounded in love. That is, love in relationship with the Divine and love of one another. He also described the evolution from seeing God as the “being in the sky” who is distant and separate from humanity and who judges humanity, to experiencing God as the “ground of being” and the source of all that is, present in all that is. As the ground of being there is no separation, which challenges the assumption that we need a bridge to God, as in the traditional interpretation of the life of Jesus.
Toward the end of the book, Being Jesus in Nashville, Jim described a near-death experience that awakened a deeper awareness. He started to grow into a Teal/Integral level in which he was able to reflect on his own journey, see how he could transcend, yet include the core truths of earlier understandings of faith. He talked about knowing Jesus in a new way, as one who perfectly reflected the glory of God and who revealed what it looks like to live in alignment with the reality of God as our source, our essence, and our destination. This led him through a transition from an attempt to be Jesus in his own way, to integrating the whole-heartedness of just being Jim, in relationship with God in the way that Jesus demonstrated.
Through being transparent about his own struggles and growth, Jim presents challenges to our own set of beliefs, assumptions, and understanding of how we live in relationship with God. Are we ready for a genuine, two-way relationship with God? Are we willing to be accountable for how we internalize this, reflect this, and practice love in our being? Can we see how this challenges, changes, and expands the significance and meaning of the message of Jesus? Of course, not everyone with an integral perspective arrives at the same conclusions about faith, life, and reality. May God help us to be broken open and grow into genuine relationship with the Divine and one another.
Therapy Tip
Our evolving relationships with God, one another, and ourselves is very personal. It is helpful to remember that our growth happens over time, we have different strengths and challenges, and we need to be patient with ourselves and with others. We can intentionally participate in our maturing faith through loving self-discipline, regular practices that encourage stillness, listening, and self-reflection. “Be still and know that I amGod” (Psalm 46:10).