Sabbatical - On Obedience

I began this week talking about "discipline", a word with very negative connotations for many in our society.  My suggestion was that we simply find the terminology that works best for us.  Whatever works for you in talking about a routine of faith practice.  For me that is an term with long history in our faith - a rule of life.  What I'm trying to put together here is a rule of life for myself.  One that continues my journey of faith, that takes me to deeper understandings and integrates fully in and with my entire life.

Along the way it is inevitable that we deal with another word that has taken on a negative connotation.  It is another word used, too often in my opinion, as a cudgel by the church and other institutions.  The goal seems to be the creation of an artificial uniformity rather than a natural unity.  The word is obedience.

I was very interested  to discover that obedience comes from a Latin word "obaudiens" which means to "listen intently".  Nothing at all like the enforced subservience that the word has come to mean for many of us.  Again as with discipline obedience has too often come to be something inflicted from the outside rather than something taken on personally.  The word intently jumped out at me so I went back to my two dictionary friends again:

From FreeDictionary.com

1. Firmly fixed; concentrated

2. Having the attention applied; engrossed

3. Having the mind and will focused on a specific purpose

From Merriam-Webster.com

1 : directed with strained or eager attention
2 : having the mind, attention, or will concentrated on something or some end or purpose

Much less disagreement this time.  So obedience is to listen with concentration, with the mind and will focused, or (my favorite) with eager attention.  This is the obedience that is so important on our walk in faith.  It is also consistent with our historic spirituality as well.  Our spirituality is not about performing mandatory  rituals in our personal faith lives.  It IS about listening, questioning and listening again.  There is a strong streak of mysticism which may simply be perfecting (or nearly perfecting the art) of listening to the divine.  The mystic may hear God better not because their hearing is better but because they listen better.  And in that way are more obedient to God.

For those who wish to make religion about power and control the current understanding of obedience will always be the preferred one.  In our spirituality we are called together with all our differences in common cause.  We struggle towards the same goal and uniformity is in fact not in our best interests.  There is a saying popularized by John Cassian (one of the Desert Fathers) that says "Contraria contrariis sanantour" or "Contraries are cured by their contraries".  In other words we eliminate the negatives in our lives (the first contrary) by encouraging its opposite (the second contrary) in our lives. Consequently envy is defeated by kindliness and love of others, greed by generosity, shame (which is an emotion centered upon ourselves) is replaced by penitence (which is focused outward, a quest for love and truth and light).

The understanding of obedience that I offer here is one that takes us forward in our journey.  It offers us the opportunity, if we accept it, to go deeper in understanding.  This obedience is a thing in which we can delight and prosper.

Peace