Spirituality and Goodness

Man the divided cannot respond adequately to God who requires man the whole….it is a misunderstanding to say that the part of man that can obey, the decision-part, is the good and spiritual part, the spontaneity that doesn’t go along with this obedience the bad and un-spiritual part. There is no ‘good part’ of a person, for good is of the whole: it is in the non-togetherness of the parts that the evil of man consists.

Sebastian Moore, The Crucified Jesus is No Stranger

Goodness is the ability to choose to do the right thing in the presence of the opportunity or temptation to do the wrong thing. That’s our working definition. Simply removing oneself from temptation isn’t enough. That is why most people’s goodness is an illusion. Their appearance of morality is created by pushing down what they can’t or don’t want to deal with so the part on top looks real good. But, that part up on top hasn’t been tested and the morality has been achieved mostly through avoidance of temptation (which is okay – we’re just not all that lucky). So, the ego may have a good morality going but there’s no guarantee that when push comes to shove, the core will be able to back that morality up.

There also seems to be a common belief that the morality in the ego will trickle down into the core and eventually result in integrity from head to toe. But trickle-down theories don’t work in the development of morality any better than they do in economics.

The true test of a person’s morality is encapsulated in this quote from Elie Wiesel: “Morality is what you do when no one is looking.” That’s why informed choice is so important. Informed choice is what matters most when no one is looking – does the offender or at-risk youth know something new that they didn’t know then? Will that affect the decision they make in-the-moment? Can they exercise moral values that have power when the hungry core is standing right in front of something that could feed it?

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.

— The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

All too often, we have to cross the barrier and enter the core, searching for the living God hidden beneath the garbage we’ve tossed into the core over the years. Sometimes it requires an archeological dig to get through all the layers. It’s very hard work. Deus Absconditus – the God hidden in the dung heap – the gold hidden in the unexplored depths of the soul, a reward for the hard work of spiritual transformation. The Aboriginals of Australia call it dream-time; it can also be called the core, spiritual center, or soul. Musicians and artists sometimes know it as the place the music or theater or a painting comes alive.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it positively refuses to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only opener of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.

— William James

Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people like me, who’ve already been there.

— Bonnie Raitt, at her concert at Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis, MN.