Snapping us out of our sacred amnesia
Our modern culture seems to have an allergy to symbolic meaning. We live in a world (I speak for those of us in the US, at least) that has primed us from birth to be literal-minded people.
We deal better with signs rather than symbols. The difference between the two is that signs are literal. They point directly to something (the stop sign says STOP, so we stop). A symbol carries a deeper meaning. To stay with the imagery of the stop sign, the red color symbolizes stopping, but it can also mean ‘warning’ or a myriad of other things in different contexts. (This stop sign example is a dreadfully limited one; please forgive me.)
The symbology of the ancient church has been carefully and prayerfully designed through the millennia to open us to a deep interior sense of the sacred rather to point directly to some angry sociopath’s contrived dogma.
Our allergy to symbolism is why a lot of us have a hard time with the historic liturgy.1 Our modern brains are looking for literal signs in church (and everywhere). This is why people are so drawn to tyrants who tell us exactly how they think God wants us to live, OR ELSE (followed by a 45-minute set from a praise band, of course). But the ancient mass (as an example of my tradition’s context) gives us archetypal and primordial symbols of light, darkness, inclusion, exclusion, feasting, fasting, etc. This symbology has been carefully and prayerfully designed through the millennia to open us to a deep interior sense of the sacred rather than to point directly to some angry sociopath’s contrived dogma.
The late historian from the University of Chicago, Mircea Eliade, likened this loss of the sacred to a ‘second fall’ of humanity into secular and desacralized existence.
Here’s Eliade (my brackets below are an attempt to iron out the gender stuff that might get in our way today)…
“In [our] deepest being, [humanity] still retains a memory of [the sacred], as, after the first ‘fall’ [our] ancestor, the primordial [human], retained intelligence enough to enable [us] to rediscover the traces of God that are visible in the world.”
Mircea Eliade2
So, though our modern culture has left us without a healthy way of connecting with ancestral sacred symbology, we have within us a timeless memory of it. I believe that a part of us yearns for it. But because church has been rendered irrelevant (especially the more ancient and traditional form of church), we go looking to assuage this symbolic memory in tribalism, ideology, and all kinds of ways, some of which are harmful.
In my own case, it was when I stumbled into the ancient liturgy of a Roman Catholic mass after almost 20 years of being away that brought me back into the Christian fold and led to me eventually entering seminary to become a (Lutheran) priest. It was the ancient words, hymns, chants, smells, sounds, tastes, and movements of my Roman Catholic upbringing (which I thought I kicked to the curb decades ago) that made me feel small again. It made me feel connected to the global communion of saints. I felt the presence of our ancestors who said these same words, sung these same songs, and ate the same bread and wine millennia ago. While culture tells me that the point is to live large and significant (particularly in status, production, consumption, and monetary wealth), this sacred liturgy reminded me that, in my smallness, God loved me exactly where I was - in my flawed and lovingly limited insignificance. I got the sense that, though in the eyes of my predominant secular performance-based culture, I was insignificant… In the eyes of God, I was loved to the core of my being. God was bonkers about me and I never even had to lift a finger to earn it.
I’m ranting now. I could go on, but I’ll close by saying…
This is why I see it as an integral part of my vocation to carry these sacramental celebrations forward. For they connect us with the memory of the deep past and eternal hope for the future.
May the living God awaken us from our symbolic amnesia and help us recover sacred meaning through the evocative power of symbols that the ancient universal3 church can provide.
As Ever,
Jonas
Liturgy = (and this is the super brief definition) the way the church service is arranged. Maybe the liturgy has a lot to do with a praise band, smoke machines, and an emotionally charged 45-minute teaching. Maybe it has to do with sitting in silence. Perhaps it has to do with water, wine, bread, 4-part hymnody, and incense. Etc.
This quote is from the Bible of liturgy in my Lutheran catholic tradition titled Christian Liturgy by Frank Senn. It’s a whopper, but if you’re a geek like me, check ‘er out.
AKA ‘catholic’ in the more expansive sense than the limited-to-the-Roman-Catholic aspect of the word.
I grew up in a Reformed church where you had to go through a catechism process where part of the syllabus was aimed at explaining and understanding the symbols, which gave me an appreciation for them. But, I found that with that syllabus I also received a heavy dose of laws and a lawkeeping mindset that went against the Grace of God, the love of God, and especially against the move of the Holy Spirit in and through the child of God. Eventually I ended up in a Pentecostal church which freed me up spiritually, and I found that they had more freedom associated with the symbols and a broader interpretation of them in life. I was baptized again, this time by immersion as a confession of my revitalized faith. Later I experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit, with some of the gifts of the Spirit operating in my life. This brought an even broader understanding and appreciation of the symbols. It still took me years to move from a lawkeeping mindset and seeing God as an angry, vengeful God, to more fully living in the Grace and Presence of an Eternally Loving and kind God. And now I appreciate the symbols even more, as they have become real to me.
Thank you for this. And thanks Mr. de Waal for sharing your experience - it also resonated with me. I want to comment, but don't feel I'll be able to make myself clear. I feel the pull to the sacred, but I keep bumping up against the law keeping - and male - version of God when I try to connect. I came of age in the mid-seventies: feminism good/patriarchy bad and religion was brain washing. I believed in something greater than me, I just couldn't connect to the examples I was coming in contact with in my search for a spiritual home. Some Pagan religions were the closet I came because of their connection to the universe as a whole. I became a "charismatic" Christian in my early fifties, mainly as the best choice (I thought) for providing my young children something to believe in while growing up. I felt that having the condemnation God (read: Catholic) while growing up; which was confusing to say the least, led me to many, many decisions made to stay with the flow, not because that's who I was. If I could give them the confirmation that they were loved just as they were from something greater than them; it was a leg-up from my up bringing. Once they left the house one [my son] stayed with the faith, the other [my daughter] dropped it like a hot potato. Just saying. I started recognizing the silent judging that was going on as just that - we'll love you even though you are not getting into heaven because of [fill in the blank] and stopped going - but believed strongly in Jesus as the person to emulate for his true connection to our God. I flailed around for awhile, trying to find another connection and that's when I found your blog. I went through every iteration of faith that you've gone through with you. :) I am happy (?) to say that I started doubting where we were about the same time you did. I just deleted the rest of my post - it was becoming WAY to long.
I will say this, I feel like this final path you've chosen is authentic. I was skeptical that you would get a hard edge with your teachings by going "mainstream". But you are far from it. You speak to the essence of having faith in something greater than we are and I am beginning to appreciate a set liturgy as a way to settle in to that peace of God and not as some road signs keeping on toward "the(ir) way". Although it is still tough for me.
After reading this, following you has either led me to this wonderful path to peace, or I am a believer in Jonas. [insert shoulder shrug emoji here] I think; I've just followed someone who happened to be doing the same search that I was - and I'm grateful.