How many of you have ever caught Jack Handey's "Deep Thoughts" on Saturday
Night Live? This is the guy who offers inspiration for the uninspired and thoughts so deep
they squeak. Of course it's all a spoof on people who think they're profound, but are not.
Here are a few samples of Jack Handey's deep thoughts:
Sometimes the beauty of the world is so overwhelming, I just want to throw back my head
and gargle. Just gargle and gargle, and I don't care who hears me, because I am beautiful.
Sometimes I think the world has gone completely mad. And then I think, "Aw, who
cares?" And then I think, "Hey, what's for supper?"
Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them
"impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't
we all be brothers?
When this girl at the museum asked me whom I like better, Monet or Manet, I said, "I
like mayonnaise." She just stared at me, so I said it again, louder. Then she left. I
guess...to find some mayonnaise for me.
I hope that after I die people will say of me: "That guy sure owed me a lot of
money."
If God dwells inside us, like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because
that's what He's getting!
Well, this morning's sermon is about "A Religion of Depth." It will presumably
be a bit more serious than Jack Handey's deep thoughts, but in case I take myself too
seriously I will try to remember that a good hearty laugh can be a pathway to the depths
no less than tears and somber thoughts.
My inspiration for this morning's reflection is drawn from the late Protestant theologian,
Paul Tillich's sermon, "The Depth of Existence." I had the pleasure of hearing
Tillich speak in person at a Harvard lecture and again at the Pacific School of Religion
in Berkeley, California during an intern year in the campus ministry in 1963. A group of
us drove down from Corvallis, Oregon to hear him. The place was packed. There was a
profundity about Tillich's thought and personal presence that touched the mind and the
soul in a deep way. The fact that he spoke with a thick German accent and with language
drawn from ancient Greek philosophy of Being made the sense of profundity all the more
intriguing. In spite of his accent and his use of philosophy Tillich somehow connected
with his audience. He made you feel that though his mind was far above yours he
nonetheless took you with him and you felt you had touched deep and profound truths of
life and being. I don't remember what he said that day, but his use of the metaphor of
"depth" as a symbol of the soul and of God was what had drawn me to his thought
and person in the first place. He did not disappoint.
Tillich notes that the word "depth" denotes a dimension of space that can become
a symbol of a spiritual and psychological quality. I remember seeing the Grand Canyon for
the first time a couple of years ago when the General Assembly was held in Arizona. Though
my wife and I had seen many pictures of the Grand Canyon over the years nothing could have
prepared us for the real thing. It literally took our breath away. The depth and height
and breadth of the canyon simply staggers the mind and the senses. One understands why the
vastness of it all makes people think of God or the divine source of creation. My
colleague Bob Thayer tells the story of being down at the bottom of the canyon on a clear
cloudless night during the transit of the Hale-Bopp comet. He got it all, the vastness of
the canyon combined with the infinite reaches of the heavens above marked by the divine
signature of a passing comet. Mountains, canyons, the ocean, the heavens are all powerful
metaphors of the divine, and also of the depths of the human mind and imagination.
A person of deep thought (with the possible exception of a Jack Handey) is presumably the
opposite of one who is shallow. I remember an expression that was used as a put-down to
someone who lacked depth. We would say, "He is about as deep as the back of a
spoon", which is pretty shallow. Everything we see with our physical eyes has a
surface, but the truth of that thing or person often dwells below the surface in the
depths. A surface symptom in the body can often be a manifestation of a deeper malady
which can only be corrected by a surgical procedure which requires our going deeper into
the body.
Likewise the human soul and personality may reveal one level of truth on the surface, but
contain a deeper and contrary source of truth in the depths of the psyche. We are all of
us more than we appear on the surface. What you see is not always what you get, at least
not all of what you get. Tillich noted that the advent of depth psychology had revealed
unconscious dimensions of the self heretofore unknown. Still waters run deep, we say, to
connote the hidden depths in someone who does not say very much. But we are all of us more
complex than we know. It's not just that we don't know the deeper thoughts and feelings of
other persons that are hidden from us, but that we often are unaware of the same depths
within ourselves. The truth be told we can never get to the bottom of knowing who and what
we are. There will always be a deeper truth to be known, and still more that we can never
know.
The Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, talked about various levels of the human psyche,
beginning with the Persona, which was the surface personality we reveal to the world, the
clothing of the ego as it were, how we appear to others; but as we move deeper into the
psyche we come upon the Shadow, the repressed impulses, desires and aspirations both good
and bad that are part of who we are, and which we must own if we are ever to achieve a
sense of wholeness; going deeper we meet the unconscious opposite of our sexual identity
(the male within the female, and the female within the male); and if we go still deeper we
sense our connection with the ultimate source of life and being, the imago deo, the divine
image or spark within the human soul. It is a journey into the depths and is not without
its portion of pain and suffering along the way.
One of the things that Tillich emphasized in his sermon, and which is extremely important
to remember, is that "deep things" (or "deep thoughts") are not to be
confused with so-called "sophisticated things" which only an educated mind can
grasp. The "mark of real depth", says Tillich, "is its
simplicity....nothing of real importance is too profound for anyone." Even a Jack
Handey has hidden depths that neither words nor expression can truly reveal. The problem
is that we often seek to run from our own depths because of our anxiety and fear of what
we may find there. Remember the by-line from the old radio show (made into a movie a few
years ago) about "The Shadow"--"What evil lurks in the hearts of men--the
Shadow knows--heh! heh! heh! heh! heh!" Yes, there's unpleasantness there, but
there's also "gold in them thar depths", and you can't get to the gold unless
you are willing to sift through the grime. "Like hit-and-run drivers," says
Tillich, "we injure our souls by the speed with which we move on the surface; and
then we rush away, leaving our bleeding souls alone. We miss, therefore, our depth and our
true life."
What does it mean to live out of the depth of ourselves? "Out of the depths I cry to
thee, O Lord," wrote the psalmist. The depth of our being refers to the inner core of
ourselves, that deep-down-inside-ourselves place where we feel things deeply and
profoundly, where abide our hidden fears and guilt, our unrealized hopes and dreams, the
dark desires and passions of our buried rage against life's oppressive and crushing
realities, the light-filled seeds of wholeness and hope crying to unflower themselves
within us. To live constructively in depth means to face oneself with openness and honesty
and to say "yes" to what one finds there, even though it be terrible
inadequacies, seething hatreds, burning passions, paralyzing fears, and existential
loneliness--not to acquiesce therein, but rather to accept these things as part of our
humanity that needs to be transformed, helped, healed and loved into something better. All
women and men cast a shadow. Those who do not are empty and shallow, without human
substance. A religion of depth reveals to us our shadow and lets us see it without shame.
In embracing our dark side we discover that nothing human is alien to our own nature,
neither good nor evil. And in that discovery we learn the meaning of compassion and
humility.
In the depths we discover the sources of our ultimate concern and the questions that point
to the spiritual longings of the soul: What is the purpose of my life? Who am I and where
am I going? To what or whom am I responsible for my life? Why do I at times sense
something holy, mysterious, and infinite beyond myself? These questions point to the
spiritual and mystical strivings of the soul which are as much a part of who we are as our
physical and sexual drives and hungers. Clinton Lee Scott once said that a chief cause of
many forms of neuroses in our times is the want of a basic religious philosophy of life.
"Things and events do not break us", he said. "We go to pieces because we
bring to life a breakable philosophy", or no philosophy at all.
It was Jung, you may remember, who said that none of his patients were really healed until
they had recovered a religious or spiritual dimension to their lives through direct
experience. The anxiety about life and death, which we all feel and which we must come to
terms with, are profoundly religious concerns which the individual needs to resolve in
relation to the Universe, to Life, and to God beyond the self.
A religion of depth is one that connects us with the deeper sources of life and being
within us and beyond us. There are at least two dimensions to the religious life--the
outer and the inner--and both are necessary. Either one without the other is incomplete
and inadequate. The outer aspect of the religious life has to do with its expression in
communal worship and collective ritual, and its application in our social and cultural
life. This is the realm of values and social ethics. We can call this a "religion of
breadth" because it seeks to reach out and encompass the total fabric of human life
in community.
Tillich also noted that depth psychology has its counterpart in a sociology of depth that
seeks to uncover the cries of the victims of our social and political system who have been
hurt, abandoned or ignored by policies of indifference and greed. A religion of depth
calls us to become aware of the shadow side of our social and political structures no less
than the shadow side of our psyches and souls. In the last analysis soul and society
reflect one another. In the depth of human history we find the human longing for a realm
of love and justice, peace and reconciliation, which prophets of old have called the
Kingdom of God. It is a hope born out of the struggle and suffering of countless
generations of people everywhere. To get to the hope we have to embrace and heal the
suffering and make it our own.
Our religious fellowship is by intent and practice a church with many open doors, many
roads leading to spiritual reality, both traditional and uncharted ways, a free church for
free souls, and souls longing to be free. Here we may nurture the needs of our spirits and
tend to the religious dimension of our being unencumbered by restrictive creeds that cramp
the soul or limit the reach of the mind--only that is, if we will dare to venture out into
the deeps and seek communion with that which is deeper than ourselves and beyond ourselves
because it is the very life of the universe and the light of the stars. Through a sense of
communion with our deeper selves and with the source of our existence we can, as Evelyn
Underhill states, "prevent that terrible freezing up of the deep wells of our
being." Through communion with the deep life within us, without us, and beyond us, we
reach out and touch the universal life of the world and the universal being of God. But it
is we ourselves who must water the seeds of spiritual growth within us and help it to
unfold. Or as the ancient Greek philosopher Plato once said, "The just person sets
his or her house in order, gaining mastery over oneself, molding the many within into one,
temperate and harmonious." Such is the "deep thoughts" soul work that each
of us is called to do.
In this age of increasing polarization and divisiveness, such a task will not be easy. But
because of this it is all the more necessary. For we shall never build a healthy society
with sick souls and distraught spirits, just as we shall never be able to nurture healthy
souls in a sick and conflict-ridden society. Soul and society create and sustain one
another. A religion of depth leads us into the inner life of every soul in order to relate
us more constructively with the outer life of all humanity. May each of us nurture and
discover our own religion of depth in concert with others. In so doing we may discover
with the ancient prophet "that neither life nor death, nor height nor depth,"
shall be able to separate us from the source of love that brought us into being and
sustains us all our days. So be it.