EXIT WOUNDS: Towards A Middleway!

"To learn is to change. The path to enlightenment is in the middle way!”

                                     ~ Siddharta’s reflection on the “Middleway” when speaking to the aesthetics.

Anne Wimberly is clear on the human story when she states, "We humans live an evolving narrative, or a story, that forms from the storied world around us. Life as a story is eventful. It is not static. Our lives have a past, a present, and a future in some place and in some circumstance. Our lives move on" (Soul Stories, p. 3). 

As I complete yet another academic degree in a higher institution of learning, I cannot help to reflect on my journey. Seminary has indeed been one of the most challenging disciplines of discourse that I have engaged in. I have been stretched, challenged, pushed, pulled, questioned, shaken, shifted, and jilted. I had to even bend and break with the blind assurance that I won't stay broken. And all this for what? For a call, an inkling, a feeling, a mystic encounter that I believed moved me towards a higher purpose in my life. All part of the process towards enlightenment, and indeed I have been enlightened.

I have been in the wilderness. I have fasted, prayed and meditated. I have searched for meanings and truths. I have pushed backed against what is considered to be normative and the status quo within academia, church and community. I have taken a spiritual quest towards truth and enlightenment, no different from that of Siddharta and Jesus. And so now, as I sit in the very last class session of my seminary journey, I find myself engaging in various interfaith practices that is different from what I was accustom to, yet it got me to the very place I wanted to be at the end of the day. A place of acceptance, a place of love, and a place of compassion.

A brief overview of my personal journey:

My belief in God was birthed out of a struggle. From birth it seemed that everything had been a struggle. I struggled to come out of the birth canal that nourished me for ten months. So much so that I was a breach baby and my mom had to have a c-section. The only difficult pregnancy of her three girls. I struggled being the middle child having to wear clothes handed down from my older sister, and sharing everything with my younger sister. I also struggled with the realization of who I was and what I was to become both by family and society, because I was a black, Caribbean, female. I had to witness the struggle of my mother attempting to raise her own children as well as my father’s children from previous relationships. I struggled with relationship dynamics amongst members of my family. I struggled through school with my identity and wanting to fit in, and for the most part I was successful by suppressing who I really was. 

Also, like Jan  Willis, I shared the struggles between the mother daughter relationship. She mentions in her book Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist and Buddhist, "There is a vast gulf between 'different' and 'special'" (p.326). Willis notes the difference of being different in her mothers eyes and feelings special in Lama Yeshe mind. I can identify with that, because "special means loved for one's self alone, for one's core, which is ultimately pure, wise, compassionate, and powerful" (Dreaming Me, p.326). Not quite sure if mama sees what everyone else has been telling me, but not until now I wasn't sure if it matter since I did not see or believe that for myself. 

It is my belief that God’s children grow and develop in response to God’s call for their individual life that will serve the greater community wherever that may be. Some would profess that they are were chosen for a “higher calling.” Yet a higher calling is not that of academic or intellectual superiority. More so it is of self-realization, spiritual reflection on how one identifies with God and their community, as well as their response with their unique gift of service. Some may have to engage that through academia, church, community, and/ or family. 

                              

Construction...   Deconstruction... Reconstruction...

As I exit the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) on May 9th 2015, I understand that the wounds that I have experienced are do to some of the suffering that I have allowed through attachment? Suffering in Buddhism is having unsatisfactory experiences, and nirvana (liberation) is the antecedent towards eliminating such experiences (Buddhism for Beginners, Chapter 5).  The attachment that I came into seminary with an embedded theology, how I view ministry, church leadership, and the church body as a whole. As well as the attachment towards this seminary process of coming in with an embedded construct, to have this embedded construct be deconstructed and now exiting with a reconstruction of the construct that was deconstructed. All of which is essential and leads towards a path of enlightenment, a path towards truth, and maybe even towards a middleway. 

Reflecting on the Christian approach where the faith and practices seems to exist in this binary (good and evil, wrong and right, wicked and righteous, etc), no poses a conflict in my personal walk and understanding of the biblical text and the context in which it was written.   

Currently, I embrace many of the practices of Buddhism, specifically Yoga and meditation. I also embrace the discipline that are found within the Buddhist philosophy and various other faith practices. There are tenants within all religious practices that we can glean from to help us along our spiritual journey. And now that have come to embrace the fluidity of my spirituality, I plan to do just that for a more holistic spiritual development. 

The Gift Of Consciousness: Religiosity vs. Spirituality

References:

Chodron, Thubten. Buddhism for Beginners. Snow Lion: Boston & London, 2001.

Willis, Jan. Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist, One Woman;s Spiritual Journey. Wisdom Publications: Boston, 2008.

Wimberly, Anne. Soul Stories: African American Christian Education. Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2005. Revised edition.