“For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”   Fyodor Dostoyevsky 

Many of us spend a life time searching for the Something larger than ourselves which provides desired comfort, security, connection and control.  

Yet, this Search is rarely so orderly in spite of what we’re led to believe.  In these times, the latest flavor is to turn religion and spirituality into mirrors of our collective psyche as it becomes a self-help, life coaching session with 12 Easy Steps to Happiness! Enlightenment! Abundance Too! 

Over the past weeks, religion in the U.S. has morphed into a desexualized political pawn in which Serious and Sober (mostly) men are disproportionately outraged over matters pertaining to a woman’s body. The very tenor of the conversation sucks the very lifeblood out of the religion being represented.  It’s no surprise people are exiting the pews in droves…spiritual transformation hardly ever comes through outside-in moral prescriptions from rigid authorities who speak from ivory tower lecterns about matters in which they’ve minimal or no direct experience.    

The truth is, regardless of who we are, transformation is an inside-out affair.  More often it’s something like this: some sort of shock inserts itself into our lives and applies the critical pressure needed which impels us to grow and thrive, shrivel up or become hardened and lifeless.  

Some experience this kind of transformation and want to impose it onto others by offering a canned version of promised salvation in the form of bound up religion. It’s rooted in a desire for the safety, security and certainty; it’s an inevitable stage of faith in which stasis and certitude have a place.  

Yet, evolution loves to cast doubt on our tethered convictions by pointing us to incongruities and paradox.   It was El Salvador that slapped me awake long before I had a Salvadoran grandchild and son-in-law.  It began with the blogs of my daughter whose presence in this violent country ultimately resulted in my visit and transformation by a cocktail of violence, kindness, unfathomable oppression, poverty, dirt, fortitude, NGOs, good and bad religion, music, humor, anger and love.  

I’ve led a rather insular life and there is nothing like a visit to El Salvador if you’d like a mirror to the ways in which you shut your heart and mind down to truth and love.  If you see the world in black and white,  El Salvador will show you paradox.  If you wave the flag in love of the U.S. and conservative values, El Salvador will show you the underbelly of U.S. policy in Central America.  

If you’re a flaming liberal and elevate the poor and cast aspersions upon the Ones with Money, El Salvador will show you the dark side of  your idealism.   It will show you that idealizations of anyone, any country or any people are as Dostoyevsky says, dust to ashes, shattered into fragments.

I’ve had many ask why I go there.  Others have wondered why we allow our daughter to go there…as if we could have stopped her.  I go…we go….because it is the response called for in the moment.  Nothing more than that.

But, El Salvador has changed my life. I follow a spiritual path rooted in the paradoxical teachings of Jesus and El Salvador is the teacher extraordinaire of paradox.  

I’ve not much interest in religion any more, nor am I one who is terribly attached to converting anyone.    I’ve lost interest in arguments on the divinity claims Christians make about Jesus.  I’m increasingly ambivalent  around conflicts on who is or who is not Christian or who God is as all of this misses the entire point of the path.    

For the moment we grasp at certitude, we make a pact with the devil to shut our eyes and close our hearts to aspects of Life and Love we no longer wish to see or feel.   

The Way of Love is rooted in timeless themes of betrayal, loss, redemption, passion, rejection, community, love, suffering, compassion, death and resurrection.  It us slaps us awake by showing us how we close our eyes to truth and shut our hearts down to love.  

It touches universal goodness when we discover inside ourselves a surprising capacity for kindness and generosity.

It identifies our hubris and delusions of grandeur and entitlement by humbling us into the recognition that safety, esteem and control is an illusion.  It points to our unique divinity when we swim in a delusion of our own worthlessness.

El Salvador is one of Dostoevsky’s shattered fragments out of which I build my life…when I turn my back on her out of fear, she wakes me up.  For others, the shattered fragments are born in the love and suffering inherent in being a parent, a partner, disabled, ill, a caretaker, an addict, an abuse survivor, an aid worker, an artist, a leader, an activist, a lover, a loner.  

I remember a question one of my theology professors often asked his students who shared lofty ideas: “But is this Christian?”  He never offered an answer for he knew if he were to honor the way of the Master, he simply is called to ask the question and avoid pat answers. He knows the he answer lies deep in one’s own heart.   

My response? Yes. And no.  It depends on who you ask.

If you’d like to join us and hear from panelists describing their own type’s dance with certainty/uncertainty, connection/disconnection and control/vulnerability, please click here for more info.  My daughter and her husband will be on hand to answer any questions and if you’re so inclined, you can practice your Spanish with Cesar.  It might be a relief for him after listening to his mother-in-law butcher his native tongue.