Bugle and Bell
musings on the soul of war
Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.
by Anne Sexton ["The Saints Come Marching In"]
Are You a Spiritual Lone Wolf
or a Member of a Spiritual Pack?
The Point Is to Howl
Is being A Church of One the same as being An Army
of One?
If a person chooses to not attend church on Sundays, it may not
be because that person declines to be in communion with God. He
or she may be in communion with God seven days a week. Likewise,
a churchgoer may in fact be in communion with God only one day a
week or, despite the fulfillment of his or her Sunday (or
Saturday or Friday) duty, not at all.
Do you want to know who really is in communion with God?
Simple. Ask God. And be sure to start with
asking God about yourself.
Let us consider some of the characteristics of those persons who
approach spirituality as a Lone Wolf, in contrast with those who
approach spirituality as a Member of a Pack. Basically, Lone
Wolves are not churchgoers while Members of a Pack
are.
There are certainly those wayfarers of the spirit who do not fit
these black-and-white definitions. But
over-simplification and over-complication are, necessarily,
givens in
our pop-up flare theology.
M. Scott Peck, in a sequel to his best-selling book, reflected:
"Many of us have been harmed by religion. And when I talked [in
The Road Less Traveled] about the necessity of forgiving
your parents for the sins they committed in your childhood, I
should have also said it is equally important to forgive your
church for the sins it may have committed in your childhood.
Forgiving does not mean going back. I am not telling you to go
back to the church of your childhood, any more than I would tell
you to move back home with your parents. But your spiritual
growth demands that you forgive nevertheless. Without such
forgiveness you cannot begin to separate the true teachings of
that church from its hypocrisy. And you need the true teachings."
A transmutation of self, rather than a transgression against
self, may be what occurs for many of those individuals who have
left the church of their childhood and have then, later,
reconnected with it. An analogous situation would be that of many
Baby Boomers, those who have elected to take an aging parent into
their own home, decades after having left the parent's home.
Love is always the suitable wild card in the game of
life.
The risk of joining a church is that you may end up feeling at
odds with the church. The risk of going it alone spiritually is
that you may end up feeling at odds with yourself. The risk, in
either instance, is that you may end up feeling at odds with God.
Warriors are familiar with calculated risks. And savvy
doesn't equal certainty.
Is being A Church of One the same as being An Army
of One? A soldier in a combat zone does not generally have
the option of whether to attend church on Sunday or not. One
becomes acclimatized to praying in a foxhole instead of in a
cathedral, out of necessity. Being A Church of One
becomes a survival skill; it's just like hitting the deck upon
hearing a loud sound or developing a preference for sleeping in
the daytime so that one can be alert for the ambushes of the
night.
And some of us bring these combat survival skills into civilian
life with us, consciously or unconsciously refusing to let go of
them, although they may have become largely obsolete. We
understandably question the surrendering of those traits which
previously saved our life.
Although Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a general officer during World
War II, was not as likely as a private-first-class to have to
literally pray in a foxhole, he survived via a foxhole religion
and did not affiliate with any given church. In his later years,
as president of the United States, he continued his spiritual
odyssey by seeking membership in the Presbyterian Church. It is
not a question of whether the Lone Wolf General
Eisenhower or the Member of a Pack President Eisenhower
was the more spiritual man. The inner man did not so much change
as did the environment in which he found himself.
War and play, as has been previously noted in this column,
overlap considerably. Playfulness is another environment on the
spiritual journey in which we sometimes find ourselves alone,
walking point. Perhaps the spiritual Lone Wolves are
those who have, throughout their lives, thrived on playing alone.
Perhaps those who gravitate toward churches or temples or mosques
are those who have preferred to play with friends.
Yet, it is also possible that the Lone Wolves are those whose
day-to-day lives are so complicated with friends, colleagues, and
the public that their restful sabbath becomes a restorative,
inner sanctum of spirituality. And, conversely, Members of a Pack
may include a number of individuals seeking a foil for the
solitude of their day-to-day lives.
Who is backing you up as you walk point on your
spiritual journey? Play implies playmates, and even those
youngsters who can entertain themselves alone often have the
camaraderie of imaginary friends.
When a soldier leaves the figurative trenches for an assault, he
has running beside him the friendship and example of such
specters as Audie Murphy, George Rogers Clark, Joan of Arc,
Stonewall Jackson, and Smedley Butler. A warrior for
peace may be comforted in his or her lonely vigil by Gandhi,
Anwar Sadat, Chief Joseph (Hinmaton-yalaktit, or Thunder Rolling
the Mountains, leader of the Nez Percé), Martin Luther
King Jr., and (again) Smedley Butler. We can choose our own
saints and spiritual playmates. Sometimes, they choose us.
The seriousness of the world and the playfulness of the world
overlap in ritual. A good example of ritual is the
guidebook for Military Customs and Courtesy.
You are engaged in ritual: if you return to the
restaurant on every Valentine's Day where you and your spouse had
your first date ... if you utilize the principles of Feng Shui in
organizing the furniture in your apartment ... if you hoist a
brewski on the Marine Corps' birthday ... if you bless
someone when they sneeze ... well, you get the point.
There is even the ritual of non-ritual,
as practiced by those who make a sacred cow out of
inclusiveness ("there are no sacred cows"), and by those holy
rollers who accept no deviation from total spontaneity in
themselves and others. It is kind of like saying, "There is no
absolute truth ... except for this absolute declaration!"
Rituals are games, whether sacred or not. And, however the game
may evolve or change over the years, somebody has to get the game
rolling.
"Do this in remembrance of me." Muslims go to Mecca
because Muhammad went to Mecca. Buddhists practice the Noble
Eightfold Path because Buddha practiced the Noble Eightfold Path.
You may decline to visit your mother-in-law's house for
Thanksgiving because, back in 1968, she declined to come to your
house for Thanksgiving.
Those of us who have been brought up in America have been
subjected to a mixed message.
On the one hand, we fancy ourselves to be the great melting
pot. No matter what your country of origin, your native
language, your economic status, or your faith community, you
can and should become one of us once
you're legally here. You are encouraged to be a Member of
the Pack, and with that comes the assumption
that you'll become a Member of a Pack.
Remember, we have freedom here. You can choose among the Kiwanis
Club, the Exchange Club, the Rotary Club, or the League of Women
Voters. You can not only become a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew
... you can fine-tune and become a Reform Jew or a Conservative
Jew or an Orthodox Jew. Oy vei, you can even become a
Jew for Jesus. We don't particularly care what classification
you're in as long as we can classify you.
On the other hand, we have in this country the cowboy
mystique. We theoretically put on a pedestal those who go
against the grain, those who defy classification. The
you-and-me-against-the-world persona of the Republican
president, George W. Bush, has garnered a lot of crossover votes
from Democrats.
The actor Clint Eastwood, in his so-called spaghetti
Westerns, personifies the cowboy with no name. He
is, to Lone Wolves, what the nameless defenders at Masada were
and are to Members of the Pack: a martyr. He gives up his
mobility, comfort, and ease in order to help the North American
version of a Montagnard village. He is akin to the real-life
Chinese man who, in Tiananmen Square in 1989, stood alone and
faced down a convoy of Red Army tanks.
It should be noted that the paradox of the cowboy with no
name and of the Chinese protester is that each, though
acting alone, acted for the greater good. And,
heaven knows, that may be true as well of President Bush. And it
may be true of any Lone Wolf interacting with the God of
humanity.
Love is always the suitable wild card in the game of
life.
Perhaps the openness to self-sacrifice is a greater clue to
genuine faith than is membership in a club which names and honors
its martyrs. One might surmise that the most painful aspect of
the martyrdom of being a Lone Wolf is the condition of aloneness
itself. On the flip side of the Taoist coin, one might surmise
that the most painful aspect of the martyrdom of being a Member
of a Pack is the deprivation of aloneness.
Love, like moonlight, is the stuff of passion. Whether one howls
solo or howls in harmony with others, the call of God is the
call of the wild card.
contributed by B. Keith Cossey
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