Spiraling back to "Obey or Wrestle?"

         Obey or Wrestle?  My sixth ever post.  For this second entry of my “Spiraling” series, which spirals back to former posts, I’m musing once again over this question of “obeying” vs. “wrestling.”  In my Just like Eve book, heroine Jasmine is wrestling over this same question, with the same characters of Noah who “obeys” but doesn’t wrestle and, in Jasmine’s terms, lets a planet drown, and of Abraham who does wrestle when he bargains with God on behalf of the city of Sodom.  Hero Davie does the same and explains through Jacob, who also wrestles, that obedience must come first.  First, we must learn to obey.  Once we’ve learned to obey, we face a new test: to wrestle.  Are we willing to wrestle?

      Specifically, the test is whether we are willing to wrestle even if it means disobedience.  At some point in our lives, and likely many points, we are given a test: will we follow what we know in our own heart knowledge to be true, or will we follow the easy way and obey what our authority figures tell us to do?

      No one expected me to buck my direct supervisor.  Nor, frankly, did I.  I thought my request would  be easily approved.  I was naïve.  And “buck” is not the right word, as I’ve remained positive and willing to follow the Spirit at each step.  For me, the question was who and what do I “obey”?  The Governor, the local health officials, and the university were all permitting what is deep in my own heart, so we could say I was “obeying” them, or, more to what matters most, we can say I have been “obeying” something much deeper within me.  I was “obeying” “My truth.” 

      While this post, like most, will not be made public beyond my blog, I have made public my stand on the controversy of on-line schooling in It Still takes a Village, essentially a middle-ground approach of hybrid schooling following common sense methods of maintaining safety, all in line with the statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  I’ve also made public my own personal experience as a mom that initiated my commitment to making sure students’ mental health is protected, including the removal of overly strict isolation.

        Divine comedy may have positioned me as an instructor who is teaching freshmen at a university that wants to offer some in-person instruction, especially for freshmen, for a department that chose all online instruction for everyone in our department.  But I had a loophole: my students are recruited by another college within our university and I, along with those who recruited my students, wanted some in-person instruction for my students.  So we put in a request for an exception. 

        I was naïve. 

        Four months later, I am both exhausted and relieved.  I’ve been downsized; I’ve lost my benefits; but I have one hybrid class and have succeeded in following Michelle Obama’s motto to “Go High.”  I’ve maintained my truth in a manner that is positive.  I reaped the consequences, but I have no regrets.

        Along the way, I believe it was expected that I would “cave,” because most people simply “obey.”  But what they “obey” is the external authority figure before them, in my case, my supervisor.  

        Who are we really to “obey”? 

        For those of us who have entered deeply into spiritual awareness, it’s the still small voice akin to the promise of Jeremiah 31:33:

"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,"

declares the LORD.  "I will put my law in their minds and write on their hearts."

I will be their God, and they will be my people.

What is tricky for us to grasp hold of, especially if we come from an evangelical Christian background, is that the laws placed within me for my path are not necessarily the same ones placed for others in their path.  Davie also explores this notion and takes it further: the “law” I am to follow today may be different than the one I am to follow a decade from now, because I have evolved into a higher state of consciousness.  The classic example for this is the choice to drink a beer.  Some can; some can’t.  Some can’t today, but can ten years from now.

“My truth”: many Christians also have a problem with this term, as they counter that “Truth is Absolute.”  According to Ancient Chinese wisdom, the Universe’s “Absolute Truth” is called the “Tao.”  The only word like the Tao in Christianity would be “Logos,” unfortunately translated into English as the “Word.”  “Order and Harmony through the Divine Breath” comes nearer to the notion of “Logos,” but sadly, English does not have a word for it.  The best word in English for me to express the Grand Idea of the Divine is “Harmony.”  How each of us achieves such Harmony can differ from person to person, and, beautifully, if we each express Harmony in our individual ways, Collective Harmony is achieved.

Today, all of us, whether or not we have followed a path of Christianity, are living in a moment when the majority wants simply to “obey”: Tell me, authority figure, what to do.  Wash my hands, wear a mask, and stand 6 feet from anyone else?  OK, I can do that.  Until I see that old friend I want to hug.  Can I hug my friend?  Each one of us, every day, is faced with such decisions.  Will we merely “obey”?  How far will we go to “obey”?  At what point do we begin to “wrestle”?

Most instances of “wrestling” over whether to “obey,” what to obey and to whom are far more complex than our current daily inquiries of whether or not to hug, shake hands, wear a mask at a relatively safe place, or accept a moderate travel invitation.  These are fairly simple.  I’m cool with hugs and handshakes, so I simply ask the person, “Do you do real handshakes or air shakes?”  However, the deeper we dive into our Inner Authority, through our own spiritual practices, the more we’ll find ourselves at odds with traditional authorities.  We might even begin to wrestle with what we had previously thought as the most basic “laws.”  Ironically, the further our spiritual practice evolves, the more “rebellious” we become – at least in every one’s eyes.

The more we are willing to wrestle with orders that don’t resonate within our deepest heart wisdom, which we confirm through our spiritual disciplines, the more the “laws” of the Spirit for our own path will be written into our hearts and minds.  How do we begin this process?  Through searching the scriptures and other sacred texts.  Then we can talk with trusted friends, observe the synchronicities, pray and meditate, journal, and let the Spirit speak to us as we do.  The skill to listen well comes through many years of disciplined practice and of slowing ourselves enough to hear the still, small voice within.  That we on planet Earth, and especially here in the US, are now forced to slow down like never before is a beautiful silver lining to this moment we all find ourselves in.

(c) 2020 by karina. Please use by permission or cite this link.