Original Goodness, or depravity?
"And what rule do you think I walked by? Truly a strange one, but the best in the whole world. I was guided by an implicit faith in God's goodness; and therefore led to the study of the most obvious and common things. For thus I thought within myself: God being, as generally believed, infinite in goodness, it is most consonant and agreeable with His nature that the best things should be most common."
-Thomas Traherne
We are made, the scriptures of all religions assure us, in the image of God. Nothing can change our original goodness.
Whatever mistakes we have made in the past, whatever problems we may have in the present, in every one of us the uncreated spark in the soul remains untouched, ever pure, ever perfect. Even if we try with all our might to douse or hide it, it is always ready to set our personality ablaze with light. ~Easwaran
As a teenager, I was exposed to a very strict Baptist Calvinist fundamentalism. The view of the race of men that was taken from the pulpit of my home church in Longview was that mankind is a depraved, sinful race. From this preaching, accompanied by loud, pulpit pounding three point sermons, I came to know that mankind is fallen, that I am fallen. I came to know that we as a race are depraved. I came to know that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". It caused me to think that I would never be able to get over that wide gulf of separation. In some sense, I rejected that teaching. Oh, I heard the preacher say that Jesus could save me and in my immature desperation I trusted him to do that..but the connection for me was tenuous. Most of the time my mind could not make the leap. Like a radio tuned to a far away station, I frequently lost the connection.
Yet, during all the days of my younger life, I silently wondered---I dreamed...is there a way to grow, to find the spark of goodness within, that original goodness that I was created to emulate? For many years I could not answer that question.
In my recent reading "Spiritual Dimensions of the Enneagram" by Maitri, and in the "Radical Grace Daily Meditations" by Rohr, I am once again reminded that the Eternal has gifted me, each of us, with a calling, a special thing that only we can do. That He knows me by name. My name.
I have come to understand that our Mother/Father Creator has given me a special name, a name that he/she knows me by. (Not my plain old Texas name--Sam Smith--how much more plain and ordinary can you get?) But, a name that is like no other--a name like my recently discovered Native American name, mine is "Bright Cloud". Rohr says that we are to listen within for that name that God gives us that is His own name for me (you). (Leslie's is "Little Big Heart"...)
In this, we reflect a part of God that no other creature will ever reflect. I reflect back to God a part of the great mystery that no one else will understand. You do too.
We learn the uniqueness of our calling through many routes. It takes listening, it takes silence, it takes suffering. It requires waiting, desiring, hoping. There is a place within us where we can within hear the Spirit. Through difficulty, we can receive the Name that God gives us.
It is centered in our personality. It is centered in the original spark of His creation that he granted us. This is Who We Are. Our essential Self, our Soul. And it is good, not depraved or fallen. It is what He/She Created us to be, to become....to grow into.
Our fallen-ness, however, is a fact. It comes as we live out our troubled, clinging "emotional programs for happiness" that emanate from our conditioned false selves. This bent of ours takes us to a place where we are separated from our Essential, God created spark. Separation. This is what our fallen-ness brings us. My Seer-Sister/Wise Monk Lisa says that separation equals sin. This is "spot on". The way we get separated from our original goodness is because of our desire for taking the reins, and seeking Godhood on our own terms.
This conditioned, "separated from the Source" personality takes us where we think we want to go, but eventually, we find that it is a dead end. He leads us--through this circuitous route to find Him, if we but intend to do so.
Indeed, as the wise writer of the Epistle of the Hebrews posits: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
He rewards us by opening His Mind to us. By giving us a unique Name by which we are known by Him. What He has created us to be-- is good...not bad, or depraved.
Thanks be to God.
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