Shortly after reading
“Memories, Dreams,
Reflections,” by C.G. Jung, I tried a free association fantasy exercise. I found
a comfortable place to sit and breathed carefully until I was fully relaxed.
Then I let my mind follow whatever images and thoughts came to me. I imagined
that I dove off a high cliff into the ocean. I could see easily under water and
had no trouble breathing. Using an overhand stroke I began to claw my way toward
the ocean floor which was covered in a very thick forest of kelp. When I reached
the kelp, there was room between the strands for me to make my way toward the
bottom, though the going was hard. I don’t know why I wanted to go to the
bottom, but I had a great desire to see it. After a few moments of fighting with
the kelp and making some progress, a loud, angry voice said, “NO!”
Have you ever been on the edge of sleep when
suddenly a voice startled you awake? At first you can’t be sure if you heard it
or thought it. This voice was like that. The intensity of it frightened me. I
opened my eyes and the daydream was gone.
What is this voice? Whose voice is it? I’m
certainly aware of the names people have given to it. Some say it is the devil.
Others would say it was only my lively imagination. Still others claim that we
have a secondary consciousness, a part of the mind that works like a production
company, creating dreams and casting them with characters and images from our
lives that have symbolic meaning for us.
If that last scenario is true, I suppose I was
about to see something that my production company wasn’t ready to release in my
dream theater. My intrusion on the set obviously pissed someone off, and they
had security throw me out.
In case you’re wondering, I lean toward the
idea of the subconscious mind, but I will humbly admit that I don’t know where
the voice comes from or whose voice it is.
Sam Todd taught me this particular kind of
humility.
Until 1998 I thought the devil was a very
unsophisticated idea, some kind of leftover image from the middle ages. As far
as I was concerned, Satan was a convenient scapegoat for people who would not
take responsibility for their own lives.
But then I met Sam.
Sam was an Episcopal priest (I assume he still
is) who was the rector at a church I frequented in those days. I studied in
their library, walked their grounds, and occasionally sneaked into their
sanctuary for a quick nap on the back row. Sam was a very learned man who read
deeply and broadly. He smoked a pipe and was a beautiful writer. I would pick up
his sermon manuscripts from the table at the back and read them with great
appreciation. He knew how to find the hot spot in a text and take you there
before you knew what was happening to you. That’s good preaching.
It was Sam who introduced me to the idea of
spiritual direction, and he was my spiritual director until he left for a church
in Houston. And that’s the last I’ve heard of him. I wish that he would read
this, but I’ll just leave that up to chance, or fate, or providence. Whatever you
want to call it.
Sam told me that each year he took a retreat of
silence at a monastery near the coast. He said the first 48 hours were the
worst. Unable to bear the silence, his mind turned inward, and he would berate
himself mercilessly about his sins and weaknesses. He felt like he was under
assault. He said it was as if there was another voice inside of him.
“Yeah, I think I know that voice,” I said.
Sam looked very seriously at me and said
without hesitation, “It is the voice of our ancient foe.”
He wasn’t embarrassed and he made no apologies.
He didn’t try to analyze his statement or explain it away. He offered no caveats
or disclaimers. He just said it and looked at me quietly. And because it was
Sam, suddenly the idea of Satan didn’t embarrass me or make me laugh. It didn’t
sound like a silly, fairy tale. The whole thing was a little scary, to tell you
the truth.
I still don’t know where the voice comes from,
but I do believe in the existence of the voice, and this voice is, without a
doubt, my ancient foe. No matter how happy and healthy I am, there is a voice
that calls me back to things that are not good for me, things that don’t even
bring me pleasure. It’s like eating an entire bag of Cheetos while you’re
watching a movie. You do not enjoy the last three fourths of the bag, but
something tells you to keep eating. And you do.
This voice contains the hollow echoes of past
regrets and bad memories, but it is compelling nonetheless.
When Jesus encounters the demonic in the pages
of the Gospels, he often demands to know the name of the evil spirit. In the
ancient world, knowing someone’s name gave you a certain power over them. It
still does, by the way. If you know someone’s name and call it out loudly in a
crowd, that person will stop, turn around, and look at you.
The spirits did not want Jesus to know them. In
the Gospel According to Mark, a spirit saw Jesus and shouted out these very
haunting and grammatically strange words:
“What to us and to you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have
you come to destroy us? I know you who you are.”
That’s a literal translation from the original
Greek. For some reason the particular construct of those two sentences has
always scared the hell out of me.
If you pushed me and asked me to give this
voice a name, I still would not be able to do so. I’m like a lot of liberalish,
educated people. I’m uncomfortable with black-and-white ethics and simple
answers. So I cannot yet name this voice. Perhaps that is why I ultimately
cannot defeat it.
The Christian spiritual path begins with stark
humility. It begins with an admission that the voice has haunted you and that
you have not been able to overcome it. If ours was a 12-step program, step two
would be admitting that a power greater than yourself will have to help you deal
with the voice.
Steps 3 to 5 would walk you through the
shocking discovery of just how much this transaction costs. That's where the
whole business of an innocent person dying for another comes in. Like Aslan in
"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." The rest of the
steps would have to do with discovering how all of this will change your life in
ways that were impossible before.
As I move slowly through the days of my life,
loving my family, working for my daily bread, and walking in faith with my
friends at our little church, I often remember Sam Todd leaning back in his
chair with his pipe in his hand, naming demons without fear.
“It is the voice of our ancient foe,” he said.
Sam said that to me.
rlp
