There was a little boy named Ruller found in the Flannery O'Connor's short story
The Turkey.
Nothing he tried seemed to work. As is common to man, he yearned to be a hero and a conqueror, and this would of course lead to the accolades of his family. But every time he gave himself the luxury of this fantasy, he would be taunted by the skeptic within. The skeptic thinker conjured up a tyrannical and sinister God, setting up a bar just out of reach and getting His pleasure of watching Ruller reach for it and miss. This God was capricious, punitive, and ultimately one who set us up to lose.
The most interesting part of the story for me was not his outer conversation but his inner one. Come to think of it, this is probably the most interesting part of all of our conversations: the inner one. For there resides the entire committee: all the parts, bantering, running their commentary, taunting questioning, justifying. This is where the demons battle it out. This is also where God's spirit comforts, quickens, and admonishes with Truth. For the inner world is uncensored, but the outer world for most of us, is both monitored and censored.
Ruller's inner conversation reveals so much of his magical thinking about God: the punitive God ("God will probably make me chase that turkey all afternoon for nothing.", the benevolent God telling Ruller, "You were mighty generous", the God looking for the best performer (He knows for a fact God will send him a turkey. Because he is an unusual child, he interests God.").
Often these sound bites of magical thinking reflect our projections from experiences with authority figures. They reflect those who have had the power to give and the power to take away, based on our performance. But maybe, if we hold out our jujubeads and shake them just right, we can fend off the severe God a little longer. The problem is in our wiring. Two wires to be exact: a black one and a white one. I am good when I do X and bad when i do Y. I am loved and worth of approval when I am good and I am worth of nothing but punishment when I do Y
Breennan Manning says that "it takes a profound conversion to accept that God is relentlessly tender and compassionate toward us just as we are, not in spite of our sins and faults, but with them. Though God does not condone or sanction evil, He does not withhold His love because there is evil in us." Back to the wiring, my woundedness distorts my hearing. God says "I love you" and I evaluate the wrong thing. I evaluate me with my own punitive eye and come up short every time through the good/bad grid. Henri Nouwen in The Return of the Prodigal Son writes: "Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the wold that defines me. As long as I keep running about asking: "Dod you love? do you really love me?", I give all the power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ifs. The world says: "Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much." There are endless ifs hidden in the world's love.
The discrepancy between the standard and our ability to it is an early revelation. We can't even sit still in church as children. We find over and over that putting the spontaneous "me" into the picture causes trouble. If tenderized, our hearts develop a penitent attitude. Hopefully and wistfully, just maybe our "I'm sorries" will bridge the gap of failure. The dilemma is formed: what to do to get rid of such pain. There are two basic avenues. There is the lookin' good mode clothed in overachievement and the hiding mode clothed in invisibility. Either one drives us out of the present moment and dispurses our lives into past and future. When we are busy with apologies and plagued with self-doubt, there is literally N0 One Home to experience the event. If no spontaneous responses are allowed, that leaves only the mechanical ones.
Who will save us from the dreaded plight? There is certainly a moment of surrender. Living this way is maddening. An initation of this house of distorted mirrors has been issued. We have been invited to and live in the king's palace. One there desires to adopt us and make us an heir, invites us to sit at the big banquet table, dressed as we are. You can spill your milk and still be loved. Is it too good to be true? No, it's true. "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Rom 8: 38-39
