|
Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Why it took me 15 years to finish my
research on the book of Galatians
return to the main-page article on "Clear-Thinking"
The above headline reminds me of a comment made in a long-ago class by a college instructor:
"Why did it take the Israelites 40 years to go from Egypt to the Promised Land? Have a look at a map - it's not that far. You could walk the distance in only several days. The answer is - they weren't that interested in making the trip."
More than biblical research, my exploration of Galatians would become a journey into previously barred and locked recesses of my own mind. I didn't like what I was learning in Galatians. I resisted the message, resisted my own research data, and continued to do so for many years.
At the time, in my early adulthood, I was a Christian fundamentalist; as such, Paul's teaching - that religion and ritual represent an infancy, nursery, or even, prison-like (Paul's analogies) stages of spiritual development - did not seem right to me.
"Surely, Paul cannot mean that! I must be misreading this. He can't be saying that formalized religion is both unnecessary and even harmful!"
It would take me 15 years to stop opposing myself, to accept my own judgment, to make it to the "Promised Land," when I might have made the trip in just many weeks.
JFK, the movie, 13 Days: "There's something immoral about denying your own judgment."
|