07.29.07
My Story - part 2
In the summer of 1990, I accompanied my extended family on a short vacation at Deep Creek Lake. As a professional woman, business owner and mother of two small children, I was accustomed to little or no time of my own. Hence, when packing for that trip, the last thing I thought to bring was any personal reading material in case of down time.
Once installed in this large lakefront house with space for four small families to coexist for that weekend at least, I quickly realized my children were consumed by the opportunity to explore and play with their cousins while my husband and other family members seemed to be busying themselves with other activities. To my surprise, I had time on my hands.
Above the rustic fireplace sat a row of perhaps thirty books, from among which I selected a dog-eared, ragged volume with an intriguing title, by an author I had never heard of: The Road Less Traveled – a New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck. To my delight, I began discovering the insightful wisdom Dr. Peck had learned over the years through his psychiatry practice and his own studies.
At one point my attention was piqued by a concept Dr. Peck had chosen to summarize in just a very few paragraphs. He had just made the point that we are responsible for figuring out what we believe religiously, as opposed to just accepting the religion we were brought up with. Then he was explaining how in his practice of psychiatry, he had initially been puzzled to find that in some cases, he had been obliged to help a person out of their psychological difficulties by moving them toward a religion, and in other cases, the only way he could help the person was to lead them away from religion. The explanation he offered was spiritual growth. He then went on to explain that people seem to go through various stages in their spiritual development, such that some of them actually discard religious belief for a time, and then return to it in a deeper, more meaningful way. He stated: “ A skeptical atheism or agnosticism is not necessarily the highest state of understanding at which human beings can arrive. To the contrary, there is reason to believe that behind spurious notions and false concepts of God there lies a reality that is God.” (The Road Less Traveled, 223)
Well, that was curious. All my adult life, I had been feeling superior that I had no need of organized religion. I was proud I had figured out that all that God stuff from all those years of Catholic school was untrue. I did not need the crutch of a being to whom to pray in hopes of having my slightest wishes granted. And here this Dr. Peck was saying that after a period of non-belief, people sometimes returned to religion. Furthermore he said this deeper type of belief had a real basis in reality! Perhaps this guy is just one more religious nut like all the others.
Soon the vacation was over and I was forced to quickly return to my normal life of busy mother and professional woman. But all the while, a very small nagging doubt about my atheist stance lingered at the back of my mind, to be dealt with at a later time.
Slowly, as the following years flew by and as my very meager amount of free time allowed, I went about seeking out other works by M. Scott Peck. Before long, I came across one called The Different Drum. Here Dr. Peck had greatly expounded on the stages of religious development. While he gave some credit to Dr. James Fowler who published his considerable serious research on the matter in his book Stages of Faith, Peck seemed to be sharing stages he developed himself out of his own experiences with his psychiatric patients. While Fowlers’ stages number six, Peck had neatly condensed the general concept into just four stages. There was the original chaotic Stage One where the person is basically unprincipled and governed only by his or her own will. The next stage is one where the person has, usually by means of a sudden and dramatic conversion, submitted themselves to the governance of a formal institution (or church.) These people need the rules and structure of the institution for their governance and tend toward a literal interpretation of any type of rules, the Bible notwithstanding. They also desperately need the certainty of knowing they are correct in their beliefs. The third stage, as Peck delineated them, was one where the person had generally abandoned the formal religion of the second stage, following instead a more individual course that did not involve rules. The person in this stage was self-governing and had no need of a formal belief system, no need of the certainty of knowing where he would go after death. This person would also tend to be a seeker of the truth.
Well, so far Dr. Peck’s explanation of those first three stages was a huge hit with me! I had been a card carrying, flag waving atheist for most of my adult life. I was pretty sure of my superiority to those “weak” folks who were dependent upon organized religion to define their life, needed a certain explanation about where they came from and what happened after death, used God as an excuse for what went wrong in their life, or what went right.
I had been brought up Catholic, and had a few experiences as an adolescent that drove traditional religious beliefs home to me. I had chosen to attend the Catholic University of America, specifically in order to learn about religion at a higher level than what was offered in my twelve years of Catholic elementary school and high school. At the college level however, we were encouraged to reason our beliefs out with the effect that most of the Catholic teachings did not hold up once submitted to rational inspection. I finished college a confirmed atheist and was proud of it. I had no need of rules to keep my behavior in check. I had no need of the certainty of knowing where I would be headed after death, I was especially certain that all the effort spent in assuring one’s “salvation” could be better spent focusing on the practical aspects of the here and now found on this earth, and in helping others where possible.
By the time I read about Peck’s Stage Three, all I could think about was how very valid this concept of religious stages was! As I had spent all of my adult life to that date as an unsuspecting but confirmed member of this Stage Three, everything he said made perfect sense to me. How grateful I was that Dr. Peck had chosen to explain all this so clearly!
Then, to my dismay, a few pages later, I discovered alas - the fourth stage!! It seems that not just Dr. Peck, but also Dr. Fowler, a serious researcher, had discovered that people who were at the most evolved spiritual stages had moved back to a position of some sort of spiritual belief, albeit different from the original faith. It is very hard to describe the emotions I felt then. A quiet confusion descended over my existence. I alternated between feelings of pride that I had reached a stage many who are never exposed to these concepts will never reach, and feelings of humiliation for all the boasting I had done in my certainty that we have only the here and now. Gratitude for this revelation oscillated with anger toward that horrible Dr. Peck, that he had felt compelled to point all this out! What right had he to take away my insular world view, one in which I had been congratulating myself on the achievement of having figured everything out? It was working very well for me, thank you very much. Just when I thought I had everything figured out, I realized oh no! my journey was not over. I had farther to go. Out with the self-satisfied gloating that I did not need the religious support of my upbringing, out with the disparaging thoughts cast upon those who had never had the strength to figure these things out! Suddenly, I was handed a few doubts that my view of the world was as valid as I had thought it was. Now I learned, if Dr. Peck was correct, I had a steep climb ahead of me.
Twice I bought the very abstract Stages of Faith, by Dr. Fowler and tried to mull through it. His stages, though based upon solid research, are very intangible and his books are written on a very academic level. Moreover, they seem to expound on the topic of spirituality from a level many or most of us will never reach. It took me ten years to finally get through that text.
Somehow, once exposed to the possibility that there is more to this world than the here and now, I was able to open myself up to more spiritual possibilities. I began to understand that the world I thought I had all figured out in my twenties was not nearly as neat and simple as I had thought. Armed with the information that there may be more to our existence than meets the eye, I was able to accept the possibilities when they came along. While I do not expect I will ever fully rejoin a traditional religion, I am certainly open to exploring the mysteries our universe has to offer. The here and now has become the unbounded mystery.
Seventeen years later, I can look back and see where the one chance event of my coming across that first book about spiritual stages has lent unimaginable richness to my existence. I will ever look forward to learning more.
Thank you, Drs. Peck and Fowler! Though I am a slow learner, you have given me a project (personal growth!) that will keep me busy to the end of my days!
MPJ
MPJ said,
July 29, 2007 at 10:19 pm
And this, of course is the story of my “conversion” so to speak - from Stage 3 (see my article “Religious Development for Dummies”) to something beyond that. I will not go so far as to say that I will ever be a fully paid up Stage 4 - but I think you can see that surely my stance by the end of this story is more advanced than what I was saying at the end of my stage 3 story (”My Story - Part 1″) More advanced because I was willing to accept questions as to my beliefs, more advanced because I recognized the need to grow still further, and more advanced because I wanted to accept the mystery - not close the door on it in favor of having a definite answer to hang onto.
MPJ
Marnie Sturm said,
September 25, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I am wondering what effect personal tragedies and illnesses in your family have had on your belief structure. Any? None? Did they push you farther away from a belief in a supreme being or bring a hint closer or make you angry at one? Did you alternate between these possiblities during the time of greatest crisis? Or just leave the whole question out of your mind during these periods?
Wonderful story! I am excited to read more.
MPJ said,
September 27, 2007 at 4:10 am
Wow Marnie, that is a good question! Up to the point in my life that these two stories cover, there really had been no significant tragedies or illnesses that were unexpected. I mean grandparents dying is sad, but expected at a certain age. And other than that, I had been pretty lucky.
The overwhelming jolt in my life of course, as I think you know, was my son Wilt’s tumor - but that came along much later. And somehow I totally did not connect that with any changes in religious belief. I was never angry - felt more like mystified as to what the bigger picture or purpose was. I think I was immmediately sure, from the day of his diagnosis forward, that there was a bigger purpose to his having suffered so much pain! Of course, this is easy for me to say, since we are four and a half years out from that and so far, he seems to be ok. I realize full well that my response might have been different had I lost him! Somehow that experience served to re-orient some priorities for all of us in my family. It is probably a strong causative factor in me doing this writing. But did it change my religious belief? I don’t think so. Thanks for asking!