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What is “abandonment” all about? August 28, 2023
Back to weekly reflections
“Some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” ~Matthew 13
What is “abandonment” all about?
Some images of abandonment are right before our eyes, like the kingdom that Jesus talked so much about. We all saw the Maui fires and watched the people abandon their homes, their livelihoods, their soul filled treasures. We hear about immigrants abandoning children, sending them on, in hope of a better life. We imagine seeds, dancing on the soil, burrowing in the earth to abandon even their “seedness,” cracking open to become trees. We know the stories of Jesus, abandoning the God-head to enter the limitations, the littleness, of the human condition. (Imagine a human abandoning humanness to become a butterfly.) We see it in the lives of the saints. Saint Charles de Foucauld, for example, gave us his own prayer of abandonment as he labored in the missions - a failure, teaching with his life that we don’t need to “make a difference.” We only need to be faithful to the flow of Spirit in our midst who makes all the difference.
Perhaps this abandonment is what the spiritual journey is. We were born into a culture that knows a lot about abundance. Our consciences were formed along dualistic lines. We make sure we get or take as much as possible. We set ourselves up and against the neighbor, friend, and foe. Dualistic consciousness divides everything up – me verses you, black verses white, good verses evil, health verses sickness, have verses have not, mine verses yours, etc.
Can we ever abandon dividing everything up and conquering it. The human person seems to be so good at fitting people, things, even God into little pockets where they can be controlled and managed by us.
Perhaps the one who follows Jesus, the Christ really has to abandon
dual consciousness for unitive consciousness, the mind of Christ as St. Paul teaches us. We see into the depth of things. We see the “bigger picture.” We see the whole evolutionary universe moving toward Omega. We encounter the flow of the Mystery of Spirit creating the reign of unity in, and among us. Perhaps this is what prayer is all about, walking in the mode of the Spirit, walking in surrender, daily dying and rising to new wholeness in Christ. So we don’t get older, year by year. We get newer and deeper in Christ. We are the seed that abandons itself, dies, and cracks open for something greater, much greater.
Just pondering….