In this week's article Sasha tells about her search for something or someone to tell her what rules to follow in order to be good, lovable, and get approval. She looks back at the development of the answer changing from her parents to the Bible to the teachings of the New Church and beyond, and the conclusions she has reached in this process. -Editor.
As a kid, I knew how to get approval. Sing in the car instead of fighting. Don’t sneak food from the cupboards. Offer to help set the table. Stay in bed after the lights go out. Never comment on other peoples’ appearances. If I followed these and other stated and unstated family rules I got hugs and praise. My parents said I was “good,” and I believed it.
As I got older, though, I didn’t care quite as much what my parents thought. I no longer saw them as all-knowing, all-powerful beings who had the power to judge the value of my soul. I saw them more as two well-meaning folks who had their charm, but were also very human. Humans with occasional over-zealousness about how great their own kids were.
So then the path to validation became less clear. What rules did I need to abide by to be told I was “good”? To be seen as lovable? What authority figure did I need to depend on to tell me the right way to live?
God took on this role in my mind. I saw him as kind of an invisible parent, who had written the Bible as a kind of “family rule book” with moral lessons for me to abide by. Since I was eager to do the right thing, or at least believe I was on the right path, I read the Bible with deep interest. I trusted it, the way I had once trusted my parents, and believed that it had my best interest at heart. I believed that the more precisely I followed it, the better life would be.
But how do you follow a text that reads less like a list of family rules, and more like a jumbled compilation of nations and kings and visions and wars and a God-become-flesh who gets murdered? Even the Ten Commandments, which should be a first stop for a rule-seeker like me, contained boggling statements such as “For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children from the third and fourth generations of those who hate me . . . “ What could I take from that?
In the midst of this confusion, the Writings of Swedenborg felt like a lifeboat. Through his books, Swedenborg lifted me from the murky waters of intellectualization, and assured me that the rules of life were much simpler than I might first imagine: love others. He wrote,
“Goodness of love is everything in heaven and in the church.” (Apocolypse Revealed 908)
Swedenborg showed how the whole of the Bible could be seen as a mirror of a personal journey to become more loving and open.
“The truth is that every part of the Old Testament holds an inner message . . . it resembles a human being, in that a human has an outward self and an inward one. . .The inner being is a person’s soul.” (Secrets of Heaven 1-3)
In particular, the days of creation offer a striking symbolism of this human progression – the stages of change as we move from emotional and intellectual darkness to a place where our minds and hearts are full and flourishing. Swedenborg writes,
“The periods and stages of our regeneration – both the whole process and the cycles within it – divide into six, and are called the days of our creation. Step by step we advance from being nonhuman to being somewhat human, though only a little, then more and more so up until the sixth day, when we become God’s image.” (Secrets of Heaven 62)
With this in mind, I was able to view the Bible in the way I had come to view my parents: as beautiful souls who are also human, and on their own paths. I didn’t need to try to extract from it specific rules, but rather enjoy it as a complex and fascinating story that speaks to my own life. Maybe I was good enough as I was: a very human person on a very universal kind of journey.
What I’m learning, although terrifying in some ways, is that there is no text on this earth that will clearly tell me the right thing to do in any situation. There is no one individual on this earth who has the knowledge or position or power to decide what is best for me, or who can make me feel loved, safe and valuable. What I do have is a complex and exciting world to live in, brilliant and lovable and fallible people just like me, and many wonderful sources to go to for inspiration. And maybe before I die, the rules I will have adopted will match closely to one of the simplest ones I learned as a child: do less fighting and more singing.
Sasha lives in Bryn Athyn, PA and develops small group content for New Church Journey. For information about leading or participating in a small group, visit newchurchjourney.org where you can find our newest, just released work book on spiritual growth.