{"id":6557,"date":"2020-03-30T15:03:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T19:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6557"},"modified":"2020-03-30T15:03:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T19:03:59","slug":"initiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6557","title":{"rendered":"Initiation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Rohr, from his Daily Meditations<\/a> for March 29 and 30:<\/p>\n

In my cross-cultural research on male initiation rites, I perceived five consistent lessons or truths communicated to the initiate, meant to separate initiates from their attachment to who they think they are and reattach them to who they really are<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In this time of global disruption, these lessons can help us align to reality, our own belonging in it, and remain grounded in the infinitely trustworthy presence of God.<\/p>\n

These five essential messages of initiation are:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1. Life is hard.
\n2. You are not important.
\n3. Your life is not about you.
\n4. You are not in control.
\n5. You are going to die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1. Life is hard.<\/p>\n

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. Creation has a pattern of wisdom; and we dare not shield ourselves from it, or we literally will lose our soul. We can obey commandments, believe doctrines, and attend church services all our lives and still daily lose our souls if we run from the necessary cycle of loss and renewal. Death and resurrection are lived out at every level of the cosmos, but only one species thinks it can avoid it\u2014the human species.<\/p>\n

I am afraid that many of us with privilege have been able to become very na\u00efve about pain and suffering in the United States and the Western world. We simply don\u2019t have time for it. However, by trying to handle all suffering through willpower, denial, medication, or even therapy, we have forgotten something that should be obvious: we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us<\/i>\u2014 in deep and mysterious ways that become the very matrix of life and especially new life. Only suffering and certain kinds of awe lead us into genuinely new experiences. All the rest is merely the confirmation of old experience.<\/p>\n

It is amazing to me that the cross or crucifix became the central Christian logo, when its rather obvious message of inevitable suffering is aggressively disbelieved in most Christian countries, individuals, and churches. We are clearly into ascent, achievement, and accumulation. The cross became a mere totem, a piece of jewelry. We made the Jesus symbol into a mechanical and distant substitutionary atonement theory instead of a very personal and intense at-one-ment process, the very reality of love\u2019s unfolding. We missed out on the positive and redemptive meaning of our own pain and suffering. It was something Jesus did for us (substitutionary), but not something that revealed and invited us into the same pattern. We are not punished for<\/i> our sins, we are punished by<\/i> our sins (such as blindness, egocentricity, illusions, or pride).<\/p>\n

It seems that nothing less than some kind of pain will force us to release our grip on our small explanations and our self-serving illusions. Resurrection will always take care of itself, whenever death is trusted<\/i>. It is the cross, the journey into the necessary night, of which we must be convinced, and then resurrection is offered as a gift.<\/p>\n

In this time of suffering we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do with our pain? Are we going to blame others for it? Are we going to try to fix it? No one lives on this earth without it. It is the great teacher, although none of us want to admit it. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it in some form. How can we be sure not to transmit our pain onto others?\u00a0<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading this, I understand how my life of struggle with PTSD has been an initiation and a preparation for this pandemic. \u00a0I have learned how to be with pain, terror, depression, despair, etc. \u00a0As I sat with Little Jenny in the pit and said “I’m here. \u00a0It’s OK to be scared. \u00a0I won’t leave you.” \u00a0This is the way to be with every negative emotion, to be hospitable, to be willing to stay with it not push it away, not numb it in the various ways we know so well. \u00a0And how to be with others who are sad, scared, etc. \u00a0Just be present for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Rohr, from his Daily Meditations for March 29 and 30: In my cross-cultural research on male initiation rites, I perceived five consistent lessons or truths communicated to the initiate, meant to separate initiates from their attachment to who they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-present-day","category-spirit","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}