A joyless, judgemental, or harsh Christian, no matter what they believe intellectually, no matter how “correct” they are, is nevertheless deficient in their Christian understanding.
At the root of all sin is ignorance, a misunderstanding of what will give us the unrestricted Good that we always are seeking. We are all ignorant to some degree, so we can’t be too harsh ourselves, but what is the particular instance of ignorance in this case?
From what I have seen in my own behaviour, and in others I’ve observed, joylessness comes primarily from the ego. That false self which I write about a lot (I think it’s really important, so you’ll have to forgive me!) Joylessness is a function of the ego trying to establish itself as an identity, and in so doing, trying to gather together its own means for self-satisfaction.
In gathering it’s identity, its fictitious isolated existence, it must of necessity mark itself off from everybody and everything else. Yet in establishing itself as a separate entity which can accomplish its own happiness and sufficiency, it must convince itself that it is saved. But importantly it must save itself! The ego can’t understand grace, for grace is outside of its control. It is lavishly given, no matter what means the ego employs to receive it. The ego needs a means of saving itself. Hence it needs a checklist of things it can do to ensure its own salvation, its own peace and happiness.
But not everybody can be saved, because then, so the ego muses, I would be like everybody else; and those other people don’t do the “right things” to be saved which I have discovered. So it must find those who are not like themselves, and condemn them as wrong, evil, stupid and so on. It must damn them, for only in damning others can I establish my own means of salvation.
It is the sin of the garden, where Adam and Eve, despite already being made in the likeness of God, instead choose to try and grab that gift by their own means, by their own power.
This is all based in fear, in insecurity. It is really inevitable given our finitude in the vastness of this sometimes chaotic universe. The ego, after all, is at least somewhat necessary to ensure the individual’s survival in a harsh world. But sooner or later the ego must be shed like a snake sheds its skin.
If we don’t find a way to do this, we will be forever stuck trying to prove ourselves, to sure up our defences, to force our own happiness.
But happiness, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness and other assorted fruits of the Spirit, cannot be grasped at or attained by the ego. The best the ego can do is die, which is another way of saying that the ego must surrender. For all grasping, striving and desiring are attempts to achieve salvation by our own power. God is with us in all that striving, indeed he is calling us on through it, but the culmination of that desire is not possible by our own power.
Joy and peace are possible but they are not able to be “acquired”. Nevertheless, how can we not desire them, and, therefore, how can we avoid trying to grasp for them? How can we avoid setting up “programs” for happiness and salvation?
We need to realise the way that is not a way.
Whoever is seeking God by ways is finding ways and losing God, who in ways is hidden. But whoever seeks for God without ways will find him as he is in himself, and that man will live with the Son, and he is life itself.
Meister Eckhart
“He is life itself” - the ego, in its desire to separate itself from other things and other people, to insulate and protect itself, in the same movement cuts itself off from the flow of life.
Joy and peace are the flow, the dance.
Surrendering to all things, letting the ego go and its thoughts, its notions of separateness, we enter the dance of all life. As soon as we try to hold onto something of ourselves, we block up the river, the flow.
The way without a way is simply surrender. It is letting go of all planning, controlling and resisting. Then we discover: “he is life itself” - there is no longer “me” and “you” but rather us together. There is no longer an “inside” me versus an “outside” world, but rather being-in-flow, simple awareness and freedom.
This way of living is a tremendous relief, and all manner of untold energies are released when it is embraced. The soul enters rest even on this earth. Harshness and anger disappear, for once one has lost oneself, what is there to be angry about?
May we ask God to give us the gift of dying to our self, Amen.