Rightness is overrated

"The Place Where We Are Right"
by "one of the greatest Israeli poets, Yehuda Anchai"

From the place where we are right
flowers will never 
grow.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood."

​A place where we are "right" is seldom a thin place where we are leaning into transformation.  Giving up being right about God, about life, about ourselves, is a process of emptying.  When emptied of our need to be in charge of all the answers, we open ourselves to the stories of people we have always thought we knew. And as we listen and speak, we find our differing and difficult stories woven together, whole and beautiful, for the whole universe to see.

Here again is a beautiful description of the beginning of the journey of transformation.  The place of assumed "rightness" is really a state of being unconscious, and of apathy.  It is downloading, being plugged into a steady stream of information that confirms your point of view.  (Reminds of the Matrix). It is indeed a THICK place where real reality cannot penetrate and the real self is perpetually diminished. It is to be dead to the creative life of the Spirit.


I know letting go is really scary but not as terrifying as the alternative!  The Christian tradition provides some metaphorical en-couragment here:   LET US REMEMBER THAT "OUR LIVES ARE HIDDEN WITH CHRIST (aka ultimate Reality) IN GOD."   So, with the preacher in Hebrews, "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace  (aka source of Love) with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  Is not the "throne of Grace" that time and space where God breaks into our lives?  It is that thin place toward which the spiritual journey leads.  Knowing the destination we can let go of our epistemological arrogance with boldness and with confidence knowing that in so doing we grow closer to the transforming mystery of God. 

​TLC