James 24:7

(Fifth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

I imagine that Abba Lot was taken back by Abba Joseph's response.   A self-directing-can-do-dabbler like Abba Lot may well have expected Abba Joseph to simply accept Lot's agenda and tell him what he wanted to hear.  "Oh sure, brother Lot, I have a whole list of spiritual practices around here somewhere.  I can fix you right up."

Abba Joseph did not accept the agenda that Abba Joseph handed him.   He did what a good spiritual director always does: Abba Joseph blew Abba Lot's  mind.

Abba Joseph, the old man, stood up, extended his hands toward heaven and they became "like ten lamps of fire." 

Abba Joseph, master teacher that he was, meant to shock Abba Lot out of his usual patterns of thinking.  He disrupted Abba Lot's mental habits in the service of helping him toward a different way of seeing, thinking and believing.

Some psychologists who study thinking (a.k.a. "cognitivists") suggest that we grow in our learning through a series of crises.   Some of those crises can be small and even unconscious. We get through those quite easily because we are unaware that they are happening. Some of them can rock us back on our heels and require years of "cognitive processing."  (Ugly phrase there, huh?)

When I drive around Atlanta I sometimes take wrong turns that turn out to be right turns.  I learn that this road, which I never travelled before, goes to that road.  I discover little back routes, which are essential to getting around here in the lower regions of traffic hell.

My mind was set one way (here is the path between A & B).  My mind was temporarily scrambled by my wrong turn (what's this? where am I?).  My mind is reorganized into a higher form of complexity.  (Wow! I didn't realize I could cut through here to get from A to B.)

That sort of thing happens all the time and I don't even think about it very much.

However, I have had experiences that I call "incomprehensible."  You have to.   Take September 11, 2001.   Life was one way.  Then the attacks occurred.  There was a period of uncertainty and fear and not having any idea how to make sense.  Now, although I still ponder the whole thing, my mind, my awareness is reorganized at a higher level of complexity.

We move from a  kind of certainty through periods of crisis and chaos toward higher levels of certainty.  We do it every day, all of the time but with varying levels of emotional intensity.

Now back to our Abbae...

Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph with a certain habit of thought, a level of certainty about how things are in the spiritual realm, an internal pattern of predictability.  

"The spiritual life consists of a menu of practices.  One grows in the spiritual life by going through the menu.  Dabbling is sufficient.  Once one has mastered certain spiritual disciplines he can increase the menu.  This is how we grow spiritually."

He went to Abba Joseph with that pattern of thought. 

Abba Joseph blew his mind, threw a monkey wrench into the old cognitive processer, disrupted his patterns, induced a crisis...whatever you want to call it...when he stood up, extended his hands toward the heavens and lit up the room.

Now I'm not criticizing Abba Lot.  As a matter of fact, I have been thinking about him in light of another phenomenon with which we all must deal: "he did not know what he did not know."

Maybe you've heard this... 

There are things we know we know.

There are things we know we don't know.

There are things we don't know we know.

There are things we don't know that we don't know.

That last form of "not-knowing" drives me crazy.  I feel driven to learn what I don't know that I don't know.  

Abba Lot didn't know what he didn't know. 

Abba Joseph recognized that and pulled out a little object lesson, a little street theater, to break up some of Abba Lot's habits of thought.

He sang "this little light of mine" with a Spielberg/Lucas touch.