I have been reading, The Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser, in preparation for a Lenten study class at Trinity. This is a book very much about spirituality and how difficult it is to have a balanced spiritual life in our culture.
One of the ideas that has stayed with me, is the struggle for balance inside of us between the opposing forces of chaos and structure. We need the chaos to feel alive and energized our souls. But, we need discipline and structure to give boundaries to that terrific and terrible energy that can overwhelm us.
I was thinking in particular of a time in my life when I felt so close to the fire and energy of God. I was in graduate school at the University of Texas. We had a college fellowship group that had grown both dramatically in size and in spiritual intensity. I remember one evening in particular. It was Easter Sunday and the young people leading the music were particularly inspired. The word spoken was compelling. We sang; we danced; we worshipped God in such sincerity and power. I remember feeling that painful ache of wanting to get even closer to God, closer to the beauty and the power and the glory. Take me into the holy of holies, was the cry of my spirit. It was wonderful, but terrifying at the same time. And, that longing was so painful, because the fulfilling of such desire is impossible. Our bodies are finite and yet our spirit longs for the infinite. Not a comfortable tension.
There is a danger here. A danger in trying to fly so close to that desire, that compelling chaos that invigorates our souls and makes us feel the delight of the universe. There is the danger of an arrogance that comes from mistaking the feeling of nearness to the fire to be the fire itself.
I am reminded of the story from Greek mythology of Icarus. Icarus and his father were imprisoned on the isle of Crete by King Minos. In order to escape, his father, Daedalus, makes wings out of wax and feathers. Before they take off, Daedalus warns his son not to fly to close to the sun or to the sea. However, Icarus, overcome by the joy of flying above the earth and drawing close to the energy of the sun, gets too close to the sun and the wax melts and he falls to his death.
Unbridled passion, without discipline, leads to disaster.
When we have those intoxicating experiences, when we are filled with spiritual or creative or sensual energy, we need to have some internal and external methods of balancing those energies with structure and boundaries. Some of those boundaries include prayer, contemplation, self-sacrifice, giving and listening to others. If not, we run the risk of becoming narcissistic and self-destructive.
There is a amazing potential within each of us to integrate passion and discipline, chaos and structure. We may never reach that perfect balance in our lifetime on earth, but we will achieve a more settled peace.