The Inner
Treasure
or
Our Journey to God
1. Where Your Treasure Is
There is a treasure within each of us – and can be found by looking at
our inner life. It lies hidden in our inner moods and feelings. Even if we see ourselves as unspiritual,
irreligious, or estranged from God and church because of guilt or discouragement, characteristics like
compassion, a sense of wonder, humility, and ministry to others of peace, hope and joy are evidence of the
natural love within. Spirituality has often been interpreted so narrowly that we don’t recognize it when we
meet it in ourselves or others.
We all have a unique, complex inner
life of thoughts, memories, feelings and desires which are the result of heredity and experience. Even though
often stored in the subconscious mind, they affect our perception of the world around us and influence our
behaviour. Indeed, the inner life is the source of our direction and energy for our life’s journey. Yet we
have divinized reason and tended to ignore emotions – which if not acknowledged and befriended will
eventually destroy us. Many bodily illnesses are an expression of inner disharmony, such as ongoing
resentment, bitterness and frustration.
In religious language the inner life is
called the soul (or heart), and the art of knowing it, healing it and harmonizing its forces is known as
spirituality. Unfortunately, religion has often failed to nurture awareness of the inner life or to teach its
adherents how to befriend it. This has resulted in much confusion and disillusionment – even feelings that
religion actually masks the face of God.
2. Clearing the
Approaches
There are many obstacles to finding and accepting ourselves as the place
where God is working. These hindrances include wrong concepts and teaching about God. Before God is seen in and
through our human development, he remains remote – unimportant or even
terrifying.
According to von Hügel, humans in their
development go through three basic stages – infancy/childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Religion needs to
understand and nurture the predominant needs and activities of each stage and thus include three elements:
institutional element catering to the needs of infancy; critical element corresponding to adolescence; and
mystical element meeting the needs of adulthood. All three elements must exist in
balance.
The institutional element provides for the childhood needs – which never totally disappear
even in adulthood – to trust, and to be taught, protected, and given love and attention. In leading people to
God, the church needs to speak not only to people’s minds through the Word of God, but also to their senses
through signs and symbols including music, gestures, and movement. Teaching needs to be both factual and
moral.
The critical element ministers to the adolescent stage which also continues into adulthood.
Adolescence is characterized by asking questions and trying to discover meaning and unity in what we have
learned and experienced – seeing “the One in the many”. This questioning also includes criticism,
systematization, and formulating theories about our world and existence. To respond to this, the church must
allow individual thought and questioning – intellectual vigour – as well as showing coherence between its
teaching and life experience. God in certain aspects is immanent – His emanations are present in all
things – and there should therefore be no question which falls outside the scope of religious
inquiry.
Adulthood is characterised by a growing awareness of inner consciousness which brings us
closer to ourselves at the heart/soul level and therefore to God. Each person has a unique inner world,
complex, multi-layered, mysterious, in some ways scary, yet attractive. While incomprehensible, it influences
us far more than external circumstances. Religion needs to encourage and guide people in this exploration
which is the most important stage of our journey towards God. A mystical element is needed in the church to
guide the adults who are invited to meet God through the hidden and often frightening recesses of their minds
and memories – God whose ways and thoughts are not ours, the God of surprises, who is now encountered rather
than thought about, who communicates himself through mysterious inner experiences rather than through
articulate phrases of set prayers, who is being experienced from within through the soul rather than
presented from without, is loved and lived, rather than theorized about, is action and power rather than any
external constraint and discipline as in the institutionalised stage or intellectual reasoning as in the
critical.
If the church lacks any one of the three dimensions – institutionalised,
critical and mystical – true spiritual development will be out of balance. If the institutionalised aspect is
overemphasized, people will remain spiritually infantile, mistakenly understanding loyalty and humility as
unquestioning obedience to church authorities. Suppression of the critical element by discouraging questions will
produce believers who have not integrated God into their day-to-day life, and religion will remain a private and
unimportant dimension. On the other hand, overemphasis of the critical element will produce unemotional
rationalists devoted to a theological, moral, or philosophical system rather than religious people devoted to God.
Neglecting the mystical will produce individuals who cannot get to know themselves and hence God – the source of
our freedom. At this stage, adults need instruction and guidance in prayer, more than doctrine or moral values.
Overemphasis of the mystical, on the other hand, leads to rejection of formal prayer, worship, and doctrinal and
moral teaching, in the worst case resulting in extremism and
fanaticism.
3. Inner Chaos and False Images of
God Our inner life experience, the site of the hidden treasure, is also
complex and dangerous and hence we are tempted to ignore it. There are often confusing, but powerful drives
and desires within us of which we may not be conscious, but which nonetheless guide our
behaviour.
The gospel story of Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac
(Luke 8:27-35) has lessons for all of us. It figuratively portrays our ambivalence – both attraction and repulsion
– to Christ, the seeming deadness of life, the agony of unforgiveness, and the conflicting nature of our inner
drives. Within, we are indeed like the demoniac – a terrifying mix of evil, none of which we are incapable of
manifesting. On the other hand, there is no heroism, selflessness or love which is beyond our capabilities. Being
afraid to look at the evil possibilities, we also fail to see our true greatness – our true
selves.
We refuse to acknowledge our inner chaos because we are
afraid of rejection – especially rejection by significant others which would make our life meaningless. We all need
other people to give our life meaning because we are relational creatures. Our relationships with other humans and
all of creation are within the unity of God in whom all creation lives and moves and has its
being.
In a desperate effort to gain acceptance and recognition, we
tend to feign what we think others will like about us – pretending to be what we are not till we become a tangled
web of deceit. Being terrified of criticism and self-questioning, we do violence to our deepest selves. In the
worst case, we figuratively live among the tombs in quiet desperation. The answer to this conflict is to turn to
God.
There are many, often contradictory, concepts of God – the
God of the philosophers is impersonal and remote, while the God of the prophets and the Father of Jesus Christ is
mysterious, but also full of feelings – compassion and love, as well as wrath and fury. In turning to God, we must
first acknowledge that he is mystery – incomprehensible with our limited minds. Without acknowledging this
essential truth, we will tend to create false gods in our image. In a sense, “God” is a beckoning word, calling us
out of and beyond ourselves, always creating anew and surprising us. God is at work throughout the creation and in
the heart of every human – across denominations and religions, even in professed
atheists.
Being made in God’s image, we also share in his mystery.
Also, we each have a unique journey in learning to know and understand God. Scriptures and the church give us
guidelines, but ultimately we have to find our own way and be responsible for our journey to God. While the
destination is mystery, we can trust that God will lead us if we turn to him in
prayer.
Wrong concepts of God that have been mediated to us through
parents, teachers, and clergy can be hindrance to approaching God in prayer. In childhood we may have acquired the
ambiguous notion that God is loving, but will sentence us to hell if we misbehave. While intellectually we later
get to understand that this concept is false, it often remains in our emotions, making us disinclined to approach
God in prayer. It is only when God reveals himself to us and we actually experience God and perceive his true
nature, not intellectually, but as felt knowledge, can we be liberated from the constraints of our upbringing and
environment.
As we become aware of the distorted images of God in our
minds and correct them, we make progress on our journey toward God. Along the way we may discover other distortions
of which we were previously unaware – which may be painful, but also liberating. For example, using the imagination
to visualize ourselves in a gospel story can reveal subconscious images unbeknown at the conscious level, but
nonetheless affecting our behaviour and actions. Once a new misconception is realized, it can be corrected and
progress can made on our journey.
(Based on God of Surprises by Gerard W. Hughes, Chapters
1-3)
Photo: Intellimon, Ltd.
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