03 August 2023

“After Leaving My Guru”: A poem with commentary

by John McLarty | 3 August 2023 |

The poem:

I signed up with the guru
when I was three
because I wanted to be good.
Somewhere between toddler and teenager
I added truth to my reasons
for devotion.

And now?
Seven decades on,
now?
I still want to be good.
And truth still beckons.
But now . . .
like dawn’s glow beyond the edge of the world,
out past the guru(s),
all of them,
truth and goodness rise
and shine.

God, Jesus, the Prophet,
the Holy Book, the holy books,
and their keepers and defenders and wielders,
prophets, preachers, professors,
councils, conferences, and committees—
beyond all of them
the twin virtues whisper, beckon, invite,
glimmer, gleam, sparkle.
Truth and goodness.

I have not converted.
I have not found some new guru,
some final, authoritative text or person
to which or to whom
I yield utter submission,
obsequious acquiescence,
uncritical, fulsome adoration.

I do not scorn my teachers,
my coaches, my ancestors,
those who conferred degrees,
ordained, commissioned, employed, appointed.
Where would I be without them?
I thank them for their help,
intended or not,
in walking this direction.

They all agreed on the value of goodness,
the priority of truth over all sorts of notions,
and claims and promulgations and creeds,
and I followed their rhetoric to where it was heading.
Leaving the gurus
with a carefree heart,
I devoted myself to goodness and truth.

Commentary

First. Note that I speak in the first person singular. This is an account of my journey. It is not a prescription or exhortation.

I use the word “guru” colloquially to refer to an unquestionable human authority, in this case specifically, religious authority. I used to find myself repulsed by the descriptions of absolute submission to particular gurus that I read about or heard about firsthand from friends. These stories happened in Hindu, Buddhist, and Sufi contexts. How could a person yield absolute deference to another human being? But after a while I began to see that in my own context there were similar instances of absolute deference to a particular, singular authority. Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest painted this kind of picture of Christian discipleship. Reformed preachers treated the writings of Paul in this way. Adventists did this with Ellen White. Adventist friends who converted to Catholicism or Presbyterianism voiced unquestioning, total conviction that their new authority was flawless.

When I write about life “after leaving the guru,” I am describing increasing confidence in knowledge that comes from my own direct observation and from science and history and literature, as well as the biblical text. The cosmos is not utterly inscrutable, knowable only through the words of a particular authority. I trust my senses. Not first impressions, of course, but the conclusions that arise from repeated observation and consultation with others. I came to trust that I could interpret the Bible apart from the “approved interpretations” of the Adventist Church or Christian orthodoxy. I don’t imagine that I—in contrast to the gurus—am now the infallible one. I do not claim that I am all right and they are all wrong. But I am comfortable (and resolute) living on the basis of truth and goodness as I have come to discern them over decades of study, observation, and living. I make use of “authorities,” bodies of knowledge that have been widely validated by experience and expertise. But I don’t imagine that any single source of knowledge is the “last word” about the shape and function of the cosmos.

Even “God.” This may need the most explanation. When I write “God” in this poem, I’m referring to our wordy conceptions of God. God as described by one preacher or another, one religion or another. “God” as I conceived him in my childhood. “God” as described in various theologies—the ground of being, the Heavenly Father, the Divine Mother, the mother eagle of Deuteronomy, the Holy One of Isaiah, the repenting God of Genesis, the wrathful God of Revelation, the ultimate concern, Allah, Krishna, Vishnu. I retain a gut sense of something/someone outside the reality accessible to science, someone/something that is the reason humans have been doing sacred ritual for tens of thousands of years. But I am no longer constrained by the “God” of my childhood. (Nor am I disparaging or combating that God.)

Words are a wonderful way for us to connect with one another and the cosmos. Traditions and norms help provide the social homeostasis essential for healthy community life. My own spiritual/philosophical journey has happened in constant interaction with the words of others, especially Adventist others, but also many outside of church. I understand my own experience in part by paying attention to the descriptions and theories I encounter in books and conversation.

I am not disparaging the “gurus.” I am the product—at least in part—of my teachers. In every field of knowledge, teachers are helpful. Whether I want to play the piano, master mathematics, understand geology, cultivate spiritual life, or make delicious bread, teachers are valuable. When I begin my engagement, it is helpful to regard the teacher as infallible. I submit to their superior knowledge and skill. I obey their fingering instructions, I accept the axioms, memorize categories and vocabulary, submit to detailed instructions, and slavishly follow a recipe. But over time, if the teacher is effective and I am a capable student, I arrive at the place where my knowledge and skill is worthy to engage with theirs as an equal. I studied the Bible under various teachers. When I preached I always anchored my words in the words of the Bible. Over time I came to believe that certain “Adventist interpretations” could be “correct” only if I ignored other passages that contradicted the Adventist claims. Eventually, I came to believe that passages in the Bible were contrary to reality unless we used some very “creative” interpretations of the actual text which moved the authority from the text to the interpreter. Still, the biblical text shaped and formed my mind.

I reject the plenary authority of Ellen White (EGW). Why? Because in the community I grew up in, EGW was cited frequently in defense of truth. Adventists valued truth above tradition, truth above the authority of church councils, truth above the pronouncements of scientists, truth above the declarations of putative prophets. Every human claim of authority was subordinate to truth. So, when I learned there were errors in the EGW corpus, the principle of regard for truth—a principle affirmed over and over in quotations from that very corpus—I was free to follow truth even when it contradicted the prophet. But I feel no need to deny the benefit I received through a thorough acquaintance with the EGW corpus.

I reject the absolute authority of Jesus as a practical matter because within the Gospels—the approved Gospels, the ones voted as authoritative by the church—there are sayings that no one accepts at face value. The orthodox approach is to explain that these words remain absolutely authoritative; the problem is with our understanding. I say, no. The problem is with the words themselves. What ends up being authoritative is not the words of Jesus but our interpretation of those words.

Just as I learned about truth in church, I learned the priority of love. The greatest commandments were “Love God” and “Love your neighbor.” Ellen White’s magnum opus, The Conflict Series, begins and ends with the phrase, “God is love.” Some of her utterances fall short of this ideal. I stay with the ideal and reject her statements and perspectives that contradict it. When I read passages in the Bible that ascribe monstrous acts to God, I dismiss the claim. Either God is not like that or I am a rebel against God. When I read passages that command humans to act unjustly or cruelly, I freely reject the authority of those passages.

I don’t need permission from the church, prophets, experts, or famous authors to live joyfully. I have left the gurus—prophets, preachers, authoritative books (including the Book)—and given my full attention to beauty and goodness. Every morning I spend an hour in contemplation of loveliness. I resolutely devote myself to the enchanting shapes and colors of the trees that line our back pasture. I savor the play of light and color in the sky. I visit in imagination a few of the thousands of people who have welcomed me into their lives. I savor the sweetness of affection these people kindle in my heart.

Another way of describing my journey is this: I spent the first half of my life pursuing the approval of God and my own earthly father. (Those who are so inclined are free to tease out the psychology revealed in the previous sentence.) In the last half of my life, I have found myself dispensing favor. I am the loving father: of my kids, parishioners, neighbors, friends, relatives, enemies. Especially in retirement, when I have completely relinquished any responsibility for the life of the institutional church, I find myself every morning and most evenings suffused with affection. My heart overflows with favor directed toward countless people.

Returning to a point I made earlier. I reiterate: I am not making a theological or philosophical argument. I am not urging others to think the way I do. I am simply bearing witness to my own journey. There are obvious religious implications in what I write. I am a heretic, both in the formal sense of deviating from formal votes of ancient Christian councils and modern Adventist general conference sessions and in the informal sense of deviating from many certainties and assumptions of Adventist and—more broadly—Christian mainstream thinking. I am not urging others to be heretical. But neither am I concerned about the perils of damnation because of my heresy.

Another note. Where I have ended up works for me as an old man. It would not work in the life of a church. Every community has agreed-on perspectives and certainties, a world view. These can be formal statements in a creed or informal social constructs. If you find yourself drawn to what I have written, it is important to recognize that these convictions are outside the realm of a denomination—any denomination. Even a university committed to “truth and love” will find there are boundaries of interpretation that it must impose on its faculty if the university is going to endure over time. A liberal church cannot allow a teacher of fundamentalist exclusivism to serve as its youth leader. I honor my Adventist roots. I also freely acknowledge that in my latter years my thinking has taken me outside every meaningful definition of Adventist theology.

I tell my story not to unsettle those who have found a resting place in classic Christian certainties. I tell my story as a message of hope for those who are still looking for a resting place. Since my dawn hours of contemplation are associated with so much joy for me, I wonder if others might also find there some measure of sweetness and light.

John McLarty is retired from being senior pastor at Green Lake Church in Seattle. He is a host of Talking Rocks Tours. He is author of Damn My Son, available for $1 on the Amazon Kindle.