The Bus.

This week Kellie and I took a realistic (and somewhat painful) look at just what we can and can’t do in terms of public offerings from The Vining Center while we’re in our doctoral programs. We decided that for this fall at least, we can do a Book Circle… but not a local small group. We can offer our first SOUL Retreat… but probably not an Advent gathering. I was bummed because I want to do all this and more. Have you ever felt that way?

It’s hard to be patient when you can envision the possibilities. It’s also a challenge knowing that, when you’re trying to bring something new to life, there’s a risk of losing people’s interest and involvement when the menu of options is small. But there’s another risk too, and that’s the risk to ego. How will I look if the Center slumps and we have to start over in three years?

Ah, good ‘ole ego, that part of us we know so well…

There are lots of ways to describe the ego, but I would say that it’s the idealized self, the persona we unconsciously craft for the eyes of others… and even for ourselves. The part of us that looks strong and competent. The winner, not the loser. Not weak or limited or confused or embarrassed, etc.

The ego isn’t bad as much as it’s an illusion, a caricature of the self that gets spray-tanned and photo-shopped to impress. We all do it. You do it, and I do it. After all, why would we want those unsavory parts of ourselves to be revealed? Much more comfortable to keep those parts under wraps, don’t you think? But of course, they leak out in various ways, much to our chagrin.

The metaphor that came to me this week is that Ego will always be on the bus—but it doesn’t have to drive the bus. Know what I mean? When Ego is driving, then we’re fooling ourselves, and we are the ones living in the illusion. When Ego is driving, we hurt other people and don’t even realize it because the Ego is, by definition, so completely self-involved. So the real goal of the spiritual journey is not to kill the ego (as if that were possible); it’s to recognize when that part shows up with its little song and dance. To notice without judgment. To say, Hey you… Yeah you… I see you, and you’re kind of funny. And by the way, get out from behind the wheel and go find a seat in the back of the bus!

Hating on ourselves merely strengthens our ego’s power. Strange, huh. Counterintuitively (I use that word a lot when we get to talking about spiritual formation because most of it is exactly that!), it’s more helpful to cultivate a sort of parental affection for our ego, to laugh at its foibles, and to simply put forth a more honest version of ourselves that we can allow to be both glorious and broken.

Our Book Circle this fall (Monday evenings starting October 10) will be on a book that has shaped my spiritual perspective enormously, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. In it, author Richard Rohr offers a simple but profound image: two halves of life, each with different goals and rules.

Ironically, the first half is about building the ego as a necessary container for the soul. The ego seeks an identity based on tribe and achievement and certainty… only to be undone somewhere in mid-life, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, with a devastating fall. Loss of a job, loss of a marriage, loss of health, a wayward child, you name it…. The rug is pulled out from underneath, and we fall hard and fast.

This violent upheaval is meant to be invitation into the second half of life, where humiliation turns to humility, where certainties are replaced by holy mystery, where we learn to recognize our similarities more than our differences, and where compassion unseats “rightness” as the prime directive. Where the ego is gently and patiently downsized like Benjamin Button.

But not everyone takes God up on this invitation; many spend all their days in the first half. I hate to say it, but I think Christians are particularly resistant to the second half of life because our spiritual identities are so often crafted upon first-half-of-life perspectives: on who’s in and who’s out, on immutable belief systems, and on conscious change-proofing. Like the endearing (and foolish) inscription in many a high school yearbook: “Don’t ever change.” Yikes! The hope of change is our only salvation.

Which is precisely where institutional religion of every stripe, including Christianity, hurts us the most: When purity codes, self-perpetuating authority structures, and doctrinal divisions supplant contemplative intimacy, we bind ourselves to ego in the guise of a religious identity. And I’m not sure that anything grieves the heart of God more or injures our world as deeply as religious ego. Ego divides, asserts, and dominates the human community, and history shows us that such collective ego usually flies a religious flag.

So how do we rescue the redeeming message of Christ from such weighty historical baggage? Not to mention from its current iteration as Christian nationalism? I think the answer lies somewhere in responding to that gracious invitation into the Second Half. I hope you’ll join me in this vision to disentangle our identities from all the good things we’re trying to do (including The Vining Center) and bump Ego to the back of the bus.

growing the soul

How does your ego show up? And who’s driving the “bus” of your daily life?

serving the world

How might the larger Christian community shed its ego and move more to heal than divide?

takeaway

Notice… without judgment.