Here I Stand
I noticed after my previous post on Pride that a fear arose in me, an old deep fear. It came from my daring to speak my truth in this post regarding how I took in aspects of my Christian faith as a child and how those early beliefs, held for most of my life, no longer work for me.
But to put this out in my blog led me to my childhood fear of disobedience to authority, parental, church, or otherwise. The fear was intense at times. As I sat with this fear I realized that I was not rebelling against authority, at least not this time, but rather it was simply that my inner authority was at odds with outer authority. And now I was choosing to follow and trust and declare the truth of my inner authority. Some would call this individuation. It has come late in my life, but come it must and did.
No longer am I looking here or there for The Truth. I am not looking into Catholicism, Lutheranism, Islam, Hinduism, A Course In Miracles, or even Pathwork for my truth. It just so happens that Pathwork is the tool that awakens my inner Truth, resonates with my soul and thereby enlivens me. Yes, the Kingdom of God is within, Truth is within. What a blessing to feel this.
My fear in this situation comes when I do not trust my inner Truth, my inner compass, when I do not trust that God speaks within me and through me, when I do not trust the benign nature of the Cosmos. And again, I am human, and since part of being human is to doubt this internal truth, this inner compass, and to look to outer authority for the answers of life, I sometimes experience fear when I dare to trust what is within. Yet I can profess a lot of things that sound good and are accepted by others, but what is alive in me will not betray me in the end.
Being Lutheran, this experience of finding my own truth feels analogous to Luther’s experience when he finally could declare “Here I Stand.” He wasn’t rebelling. He wasn’t leaving the church. He was simply stating what he found as truth, and this Knowing came from an inner compass. I do not want to be dramatic in borrowing Luther’s declaration, but this is what my realization feels like.
Luther experienced freedom in his realization and declaration of “Here I Stand.” It seems that this freedom got locked up in confessions and dogmatics as the Lutheran church evolved. It seems that this process happens often when new bursts of truth arrive on the scene. Those who come after try to capture and rigidify the new truths into a new system that people can cling to for safety and security.
So here I stand in my own conviction, my own truth. It is an open truth, open to new discoveries, new insights. It is an alive, dynamic, and evolving truth. It is an undefended truth, not out to win people over or declare other people’s truth wrong. It is simply that I cannot go on clinging to what other people think I should think, believe, and profess.
The freedom I feel in this is so rich. And yet times come when I doubt, because I am human. But even in my doubt I am experiencing peace just knowing that my God-given compass for life lies within. I trust that I shall find it again.