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One of the challenges of spirituality is keeping the language grounded. By ‘grounded,’ I mean using terms to which people can relate rather than antiquated ones that a lot of people have heard, but can’t really track with in everyday lingo. There are a lot of strong spiritual principles for living that are helpful to address, but unless we can frame them in more familiar and useful ways, my experience tells me that they are likely to do more harm than good.
For me, the word ‘righteous’ (and all of its derivatives) is such a word. It is one of those religious-sounding, antiquated words that we may be better off reframing. For instance, ask most people what they think when they hear the word ‘righteous’ and I’m betting they say something like, “the need to be more pure and holy; to be more disciplined in avoiding sin.” And if they did say something like that, let’s say as they strolled through the local mall or conversed at your favorite coffee shop, what would people overhearing such a conversation think?
Here are the words in that sentence that are more apt to drive people away rather than compel them to draw near: righteousness, pure, holy and sin. One sentence, four religious terms – some of which carry what a lot of people would consider to be impossible dictates, i.e., their internal response being something like, “Righteousness?! I find it impossible to be pure, holy and sinless.”
I’m not saying (as SBNR folks are often accused of from pulpits large and small) that those words aren’t important or no longer have any meaning and are in need of being re-defined so that we can avoid their demand for a radical change in lifestyle – the point I’m driving toward is that if they hold potent truths within, but have been so overused in ‘preachy’ conversations the world-over, is it not worth exploring alternate ways of making the same point?
And this brings me back to the word ‘righteous.’
For me, righteousness is about reintegration. It’s about taking me out of my Humpty-Dumpty-egoic-false-self world that all my pieces might be put back together again. It’s about helping me gain my bearings that I might once again discover true north, get back up, and continue the journey anew.
I like the idea that this G-D I seek, the One too distant to grasp yet always near enough to touch, makes me new every morning by reintegrating my true self and therein my world.
That’s what I need.
Reintegration.
I don’t need more religious sounding words reminding me of standards I’ll never adequately be able to keep along with bucket loads of daily reminders that I am, and my life is, an abject failure. (The voices in my head do that job just fine, thank you very much.)
And I don’t need a lot of well-meaning religious people telling me not to sweat it – that G-D makes us righteous, it’s not something ‘we’ do. That means nothing if I can’t get a grip on the term in ways that speak to the deepest part of who I am; ways that allow me to participate more meaningfully.
Now, to think that G-D makes me reintegrated each day and moment-to-moment as I seek the reign of G-D in my life – well, that seems to do it for me!
Is it paradoxical considering integrating disintegration?