I started this post before Christmas, and have been considering for the last couple or three weeks how to say simply what I've learned about obedience. There are nuances and layers to this concept -- ripples that move outward touching other elements of religions life. It becomes very involved. I thought at first to start with Keating in the 20th century and move backward in time to show how the concept might be nuanced now, but have decided it would be too wordy and too long an explanation -- perhaps requiring multiple parts. So, I've decided this evening just to begin at the beginning.
There is a proto Indo European root word, au-. It is defined, according to the University of Texas Linguistics Learning Center, to be "au-, auei- 'to perceive, understand, be aware of' " (see this link:http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/R/P0135.html). This root gives rise to the Latin word, audire, which means to hear or to listen. The Latin phrase, ob audire, gives rise to the English word, obedience. Some conjecture that the Latin, ob edire, is the root of the word obedience. Ob edire denotes following a command. So, for most who delve into the depths of the word, obedience, after Vatican II, the emphasis is on hearing and listening rather than in blindly following a command. As it is described in works by Sanda Schneiders, Amy Hereford, and other contemporary writers on women's religious life, obedience has to do with mutual listening. If we look at the proto Indo European root that is the initial source for the word obedience, the listening has to do with understanding and with changing perception and awareness as a result of understanding. Ultimately, it seems to me, obedience is about becoming more aware, more perceptive in a mutual listening. It is less about power relationships (blindly following the orders of a superior) and more about dynamically coming to know others in relationship, in a give and take of discovery that finds in another always something that is new and changing and unfolding. Obedience, in my opinion, is about dynamic growth and change at its essence, about a continually coming into greater awareness.
So now, jumping back to what I wrote about Keating about three weeks ago, which was:
I was talking with a friend this morning about perception and awareness. She shared an email with me from Contemplative Outreach. It contained a transcript from an 8 minute talk done by Fr. Thomas Keating entitled, "The Five Levels of Consciousness," which is part of the "Invitation of God" DVD. The synopsis from the DVD cover, as provided by the Contemplative Outreach folks, reads in part, "The outermost layer of consciousness consists of ordinary, everyday consciousness, where all our thoughts and emotional reactions lie. Through Centering Prayer, the next level of consciousness, spiritual awareness, is awakened, from which intuitions, among other things, derives. From here, yet another deeper layer can slowly be opened, first, the True Self, the image of God in which we are created, and thereafter, the Ground of our Being, which is our rootedness in God and his creative powers, and finally, our inmost center where we meet the presence of God and the Holy Trinity." In the DVD, Keating refers to this "next level of consciousness," the one after ordinary, everyday consciousness, as being Spiritual Awareness, which in the transcript is in larger and bolded letters. So, it's an important term and to be noted. In my opinion, the opening of Spiritual Awareness, using Keating's term, is an opening up into the classically described state of mysticism named, by Evelyn Underhill and others, as purgation. In my opinion, this purgation, this Spiritual Awareness, to use Keating's parlance again, has everything to do with the evangelical counsel of obedience. Keating goes on to describe spiritual awareness, as awakened through contemplative prayer (and centering prayer in particular), as a shedding of false selves, as a letting go of attachments which our egos may have, and of which we may not be aware. In short, centering prayer leads into the process of purgation which results in a change in levels of awareness and perception.
So, the linkage that I was trying to make three weeks ago is that, it seems to me, practicing obedience, as a core change in perception, leads us along the journey by helping us to shed the excess baggage of our false selves, to use Keating's terminology. It leads us ultimately toward union with God. One more little thought . . .
My friend, Franklin Fong, OFM, reminded me several months ago of this ultimate priority. He said to remember: "You don't belong to the provincial. You don't belong to the council. You belong to God." To emphasize the point, he gave me one of his calligraphy pieces, which reads: "I belong to Christ." Six months and more later, I'm beginning to understand what he was trying to get me to perceive. It is a perception shift that is of both head and heart, and is slowly coming to awareness -- that ultimately my obedience lies where the Spirit leads.
