117. I Live, No Longer I: Paul’s Spirituality of Suffering, Transformation, and Joy
Rating: ☆☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by: Laura Hogan
Author: Laura Reece Hogan
Genre: Christian, Self-Improvement, Memoir
172 pages, published January, 2017
Reading Format: E-Book
Summary
I Live, No Longer I explores the question of human suffering and how it can connect us to God. Laura Hogan discusses how it is through the concepts of kenosis, enosis and theosis (i.e. moments of loss, moments of experience of creation and community, and moments of transformative unity with God) that we discover our deep connectedness to God and to one another. Hogan effectively uses the biblical language of Paul the Apostle, as well as his experiences with suffering and transformation, to encourage us to express the pattern of Jesus Christ in our words, actions, and very lives, especially when we are challenged by suffering. By doing so, we can transform our agony into true joy in God as we become aware of our relationship with the divine in every aspect of our lives, including experiences of great pain. As Hogan both states and gracefully illustrates, “God is effective to accomplish fruitfulness and his divine purpose even in and through dark or dire circumstances.”
Quotes
“the way Paul sees it, the joy is the greater in any situation for a Christian if it involves all three moments which merge together into an emptying of self (kenosis) in favor of another (enosis) which reveals transformative union with Jesus (theosis).”
“Paul discovered and wanted to teach us that not only was the cross of Jesus Christ a paradox, but this very same paradox threads through the experience of all Christian life. Ironically what may seem to be death is paradoxically life, what may seem to be defeat is paradoxically victory, what may seem to be loss is paradoxically gain, and all Christian experience flows through this strange but powerful paradigm. Once we begin to perceive reality through this paradoxical lens of the cross, our ways of interpreting events and people in our lives change and expand—we begin to leave room for the perhaps hidden yet effective purposes of God in all things.”
“As many have noted, God does not promise to prevent the flood or fire, but he does promise to be with us in the flood or fire.”
“Paul interprets the fact of his imprisonment, and his suffering, as directly instrumental to furthering the spread of the gospel in a way both unexpected and effective. Moreover, he notes that the intention of these new preachers, whether springing from rivalry or love, is irrelevant, because either way Christ is proclaimed: “And in that I rejoice”
“Paul’s experience of God’s effectiveness even in situations which seemed radically lost and hopeless had its roots in the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul discovered that the cross of Jesus Christ had something to do with not just Jesus Christ, but Paul himself and all humanity. If “even death on a cross” (Phil 2: 8) had the supreme ability to restore and transform humanity, then that changed everything. Everything must be reinterpreted through this powerful and paradoxical lens of the cross. Even the experience of prison takes on new meaning. Even prison, in all its misery and suffering, contains the power to accomplish the transformative will of God—prison represents not defeat but victory on a divine scale. Yet prison is not just for those languishing behind bars. Prison is a universal human experience. Ultimately, don’t we all encounter a personal experience of prison, portable or otherwise?”
“Simultaneously, as we also examined in each of these chapters, we experience a rich continuum of transformative spiritual experience through all the moments of kenosis (moments of darkness, emptying or loss), enosis (moments in which we experience the divine in and through creation), and theosis (moments in which we experience a oneness or union with God) which play out in our lives, in all the minutes and days and intervals of life—in the infinitesimally small and the vast, in the hidden and the laughably obvious, the simple smile and the complicated drama, in the whisper and the thunderclap.”
“The moment of enosis, then, is the experience of Christ-with-us, in and through creation, which includes human beings and nature, and as found in the bonds of community. Here in this moment, in the very heartbeat of human existence, divine meets human in intimate sharing and loving presence in both individual and communal contexts. Paul’s writings witness abundantly to his experience of Christ-with-us, a concept most vividly illustrated in the recurring Pauline metaphor of Christian community as the body of Christ.”
“God is effective to accomplish fruitfulness and his divine purpose even in and through dark or dire circumstances.”
“If we are in the midst of a blade experience, we can trust that it will not be without divine effectiveness. The direction we are forced into may ultimately yield unexpected blessings. Perhaps the pain we experienced equips us for empathic help of others. Or, the blade could cut away something toxic. Not unlike a surgical procedure, the blade’s cut may be in the service of ultimately healing the patient. The blade may slice away parts of ourselves that we did not even know were cancerous, diseased, holding us back or keeping us from God. Or perhaps the divine effectiveness of the blade’s wounding remains shrouded in mystery and we simply try to trust that God will take the slicing crown of thorns and in some miraculous way turn it into a crown of victory.”
“Are you beginning to envision that magnetic chain of divinized followers of Christ? As we know from playing with magnets and paperclips as children, a magnetized metal filing is capable of drawing up another filing after it as well. Then in turn, that magnetized filing may draw another yet another filing, and so on. The Christ magnet is the singular source of attraction and power, and yet the attraction and power of Christ can be transmitted through other magnetized metal filings. That is precisely why we are attracted to Christ, yet we also are attracted to the same Christ in and through the lives of those creatively expressing the Christ pattern. So each person expressing the Christ pattern in her or his own way also contains the potential to transmit the pattern of Christ to others.”
“Thérèse had the insight that God may make saints of the smallest of us, even in our own ordinary circumstances and lives. In fact, it is precisely in our smallness and ordinariness that he calls us to be his own little birds. So, little birds, take heart. God tells you—you—that you are his little bird, and that you are capable of reflecting this lovely pattern of Christ in exactly the delightful and particular way which you have been called to express.”
“Our contemporary Stephen Colbert also expresses a paradoxical experience of the effectiveness of God even in terrible circumstances. He explained to an interviewer that, “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that’s why. Maybe, I don’t know. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” Asked by his flabbergasted interviewer to help him understand this better, Colbert immediately cited a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien in response to a priest who had written questioning him regarding the treatment of death in his novels not as punishment for original sin but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back, ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “‘ What punishments of God are not gifts?’” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn’t mean you want it. I can hold both of these ideas in my head.” Colbert was thirty-five years old before he could “really feel the truth” of this paradox. Somehow he came to feel grateful for the gift even as he still felt the awfulness of the loss. Perhaps it is this very paradox of gain even in loss which gave rise to the attitude of gratitude and joy in his daily life. His interviewer, obviously deeply impacted by Colbert’s words, wrote: “The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it with me since. It’s our choice, whether to hate something in our lives, or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain.”
“When I was nine years old, I asked my mother, “Why am I me?” I probably would not even remember that I asked this, except for the fact that I got a lump in my throat when I said it, and that my mother and my father could not answer the question. The question I was really asking at that time was: why out of all the people in the world do I happen to be me? I have come to realize that this is part of the question we ought to be asking ourselves as we grow in our relationship with God. Each of us is a completely original creation, with our utterly unique gifts and hidden potentialities. Part of life is unwrapping this gift, and discovering not only who we are, and why we are, but ultimately who we are in Christ, and why we are—our purpose—in Christ. I live this rich and beautiful life given to me, yet no longer I—the greatest “I” I can be is the “we” of no longer me but Christ in me. And that I live, no longer I but Christ in me also tells me a lot about why I am, and why I am me, in my particular time, place, and person, just as you are also in your particular time, place, and person. We are all part of this living, moving, breathing Body of Christ, each with our own particular expression and confession of Christ, each with our own place and purpose, yet also in intimate connection and unity with the whole.”
“So my fellow little birds, imagine yourself once again on your beautiful and radiant spiral staircase—brilliant with shades of the bullet blue of your kenosis, the rosebud embrace of enosis, and the golden crown of theosis, all threading through you yourself and your staircase in imitation or mimesis of the One we love, Jesus Christ. The entirety of the staircase is held and supported lovingly by the central axis, which is a stunning bolt of pure light, beginning somewhere infinitely above, or perhaps having no beginning at all, being Infinity itself. This shaft of Light provides more than love and strength and light and the way, it provides life and the presence of our God with us—and therefore joy, abundant joy.”
My Take
Full disclosure, I have known Laura Hogan for almost 25 years when we met as young associates at a Century City, California law firm. I have always been impressed with Laura’s kind and gentle spirit as well as her keen intellect. After reading her new book, I find Laura to be more impressive than ever. I Live, No Longer I is a beautifully written exploration of the transformative power of suffering. It is a very thoughtful and biblically supported discussion of how we cannot not only find divine solace when we are in pain, but how the pain itself can bring us closer to the community of others and to union with God. While Laura provides ample theological support for her ideas, including Paul’s paradoxical pattern of becoming like Christ, her book most resonates when she discusses her personal experiences and the experiences of other contemporaries (including Mother Theresa and Stephen Colbert) with kenosis, enosis and theosis. I also really enjoyed her analogy that we are like the “little bird” described by Saint Therese of Lisieux. Even as an insignificant little bird, through our actions, we can make a difference and lead a joyful life in communion with other people and with God. I highly recommend this beautiful book.
