"Then Enneagram" attempts to help us face ourselves - the whole thing. Richard Rohr makes some comments about church that are biting but so important for us to hear.
...the church, strange as it seems has always been a bit uncomfortable with saints and mystics; it is content just to have people "in the pews." Let's be honest, we would sooner have control than real conversion; we would sooner have well-oiled church societies than transformed people. Cosmetic piety takes away our anxiety about God and about ourselves, but it does not address the real and subtle ways that we "lose our soul." Cosmetic piety never asks the hard questions of itself or of the church structures. Jesus challenged both - constantly.
What we really need to be able to do is to face those times when we are losing our souls. When that can happen, there need not be the manufacturing of facades that are used to keep us hidden from ourselves. There is a real darkness that must be acknowledged in each of us. If it is hidden or covered over by this "cosmetic piety" it will be the death of us and there can be no rebirth and resurrection to new life. Rather, we sink within this hole and hope that we never will never have to face the person we have become. This hole or hiding place is deadly for each of us as individuals and also for every expression of community. When we enter into an honest journey in which we face that which we would love to avoid and the pitfalls that trip us up, we will find a life that is available to us that is beyond the many boxes into which we have been trying to hide. The church needs to face its corporate darkness and the gifts that are so often used against transformation rather than for it.
Connection: How is it that I do things like this...rather than that? How is it that you enter a situation in a very different way from how I would do it...what can we learn from one another when we are able to see our differences and the gifts and sins brought along the way with us?
Lord of the New Day, as we move into what is now before us, remind us to stop and listen to whose we are and how we can be free to face the person we have tried to make ourselves. Within that freedom, we can then become more in touch with the gifted one you have created us to be. Amen.
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