Phycology defines obedience as "social influence that involves performing an action under the orders of an authority figure". It differs from compliance (which involves changing your behavior at the request of another person) and conformity (which involves altering your behavior in order to go along with the rest of the group). Obedience requires surrendering your ego to someone you have agreed to let do your thinking for you.
Holy obedience then is to follow the orders of your inner guidance, your leadings, the orders you get from God.
I'm not at all good at obedience!
Agenda:
1. Take a vision walk
2. Read Testimony of Devotion
3. Obedience plans
1. Take a vision walk:
The full moon is coming soon and, because I'm leaving on Wednesday for a week-long Quaker Meeting, I went ahead and completed some of my Full Moon work over the weekend. On Sunday I settled into silence and accessed my intuitive mind - my connection to the Creator and the Inner Guide - and sought a leading of the spirit with an open mind and heart, using these queries:How do I "live with integrity"? What are the words and actions that I most clearly understand as being essential to wholeness?
How will I find the passion to be persistent? How will I hold myself accountable?
From my journal: Having integrity means I live with intention; I choose my actions rather than letting them choose me - rather that re-acting to life. But everything is a balancing act: I want to be care-full, not care-less, but I also want to have some semblance of care-free spontaneity.
2. Read Testimony of Devotion:
I've been reading Thomas R. Kelly's book "Testament of Devotion" (1941). I continue to struggle with the pronouns, and metaphors for God, and in this chapter, I struggle against myself as well!
The second chapter is Holy Obedience. He talks about complete obedience, as in give up yourself, and "follow God's faintest whisper. But when such a commitment comes in a human life, God breaks through, miracles are wrought, world-renewing divine forces are released, history changes."
Kelly is quite adamant that this is not a "lovely ideal" but a "serious, concrete program of life, to be lived here and now, in industrial America, by you and by me." He describes our churches and meeting houses "filled with respectable, amiable people" willing to follow God half way (ouch), and against whose mildness, mediocrity, and passionlessness the early Quakers would have scoffed.
The nature of holy obedience is to become a new creature, to be born again, to go all the way, to "be faithful to (God) until the last lingering bit of self is surrendered and you are wholly God-possessed".
3. Obedience plan:
Can I (do I want to) lead a life of prayer unceasing and holy obedience? I'm not sure I'm able. My generation's slogan is question authority, and I do that of even the highest authority. I've got a plan, though. I'm going to:
- Use a mantra to remind myself to listen deeply, to Truth, with a capitol T.
- Get in touch with my passion for said Truth, by writing intentions.
- Discern my orders, and then do my best to obey them!
Nice post, good questions. I tend to question authority also and I don't like the blind obedience concept. One thought I had after reading your piece was to think of methods to allow for the allowance or surrender to our higher selves.
ReplyDeleteyes! Carol says: "I agree that it's important to question authority while at the same time recognizing that, with discernment, we can each find a source of authority within us and beyond us. I like Douglas Steere's phrase, "the Beyond within." Mystics know intuitively that there is something Beyond that is a source of strength and inspiration. Paying attention and listening carefully are the keys."
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