The Crowded Self

 This week’s gospel reading from Mark 1:21-28 has left me ruminating all week on what I am calling “the crowded self.” It is a story about a man “with an unclean spirit.” The language of the story – both the narrator’s descriptions and Jesus’ words to the man – fluctuate between identifying the man and the unclean spirit as both one entity and as different entities. From some of the other biblical stories about persons with unclean spirits, we can see why, on the one hand this unclean spirit could make him a fearsome terror, and, on the other hand, we could still look at him and feel sorry for him. In my translation blog, that you can read here, I refer to this situation as “a man and his cage.” 

 

The language of “unclean spirit” seems very pre-scientific and almost spooky, but I think the attempt to name the difference between our identity and our struggles – or our accomplishments, for that matter – is ongoing work. Not long ago I was giving myself three minutes a day to devote to Duolingo, to try to build up my Spanish. Occasionally the app would issue a phrase that always gave me pause: “Now you will be able to recall this skill more easily from your brain.” The fact that "I" would be able to “recall” “this skill" from "my brain" was odd to me. What is the distinction between the “I” who is able to recall, and “this skill” that I have learned, and “my brain”? Is “my brain” just some kind of passive card catalog that “I” can rummage in to find things? If so, what part of me is doing the rummaging? What part of me is deciding to rummage my brain? It left me asking, “Who am I?” Or, apparently, I ought to ask, "Who are I"? 

 

The same identity issue seemed to be at play in a news article about two attorneys who were disgraced when their former firm released a trove of emails they had sent that were full of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic/Asian comments. They issued this apology. “The last 72 hours have been the most difficult of our lives, as we have had to acknowledge and reckon with those emails," adding, "They are not, in any way, reflections of the contents of our hearts, or our true values.” But if those horrible emails came from something other than their hearts or true values, from whence did they come? If those emails were not "in any way" reflections of the heart or values, what exactly were they reflecting? 

 

It is ever a difficult challenge to name the unity and multiplicity of the human personality. In Deuteronomy 6:4-5, there is a formula called “the Shema,” named after the first Hebrew word, that reads, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Notice the unity that is ascribed to God, “the Lord alone,” which could also be translated, “the Lord is one.” And notice the tripartite human condition composed of heart, soul and might. What is at play is the attempt to recognize what I call “the crowded self.” We express it sometimes as “me, myself, and I” or in Freudian terms of the “ego, id, and superego” or in Jungian terms of the “self and shadow self” or President Lincoln’s appeal to our “better angels” and so on. Practically every self-help book, New Year’s resolution, and even Lenten disciplines are predicated on a part of our personality introducing new to or excluding old habits from the rest of our personality, to become a better personality. And when part of us resists and another part of us feels ashamed and another part of us speaks encouragement - we may find ourselves thinking, “It’s awful crowded in here.” 

 

So, here’s a word for that part of us what aspires to do better, and for that part of us who is chagrined that we need to do better, and for that part that fails, and here’s to that part that shames, and that part that encourages, and that part that referees among the other parts: Grace. Grace abounds. Grace forgives. Grace redeems. Grace heals. Grace. Grace is the lens through which God views the crowded space we call “me.” 

 

Mark of St. Mark