The Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) wrote, "Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside awakes." That sounds like something Jesus might have said. But what could it mean? Perhaps, to discover (awaken to) my true self, I need to go inside my heart. If I live only in the outside, surface-world, it's like dreaming. Dreaming someone else's idea of how to live my own unique life: what the culture says, what the "authorities" say, what the radio talk-show guy says, what the preacher says, even what the spouse says. Some people never make their own life; they never ask, "What do I really believe?"
For maybe the hundredth time, someone recently asked me the names of the two thieves who died to Jesus' left and right. Is that a real spiritual/religious question? One Armenian tradition says their names were Dismas and Gestas. But you know what? So what! That's a pious distraction. The question is asked, the official answer is given, and the inquirer goes off feeling somehow better. But that kind of religious inquiry (What was the name of the Samaritan woman at the well? What were the names of the three kings? What was the name of the Prodigal Son? Did the groom at the wedding at Cana leave his new wife after the wedding to become a monk? Was there really a Bethlehem star?) keeps us feeling safe in outside religion. One can spend an entire religious lifetime and never leave the shoals. So, am I curious about the names of the two thieves? By all means — but name them personally, in such a way that the names take me inside, into my heart, where their naming can help me to grow and evolve?
I would suggest, even before we hear them speak from the gospel page, the Calvary thieves have something to tell or ask us. Fulton Oursler (1893-1952) was an American editor, writer and journalist. He must have had the gospel account in mind when he said, "Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves — regret for the past and fear of the future."
Regret and Fear are real thieves, robbing us of energy and the possibility for personal insight. They steal away our attention and focus. They deny us real and full life. They leave us depressed and useless.
Not a few people still fret over the mistakes of long ago. They don't trust the words of absolution spoken over them. They effectively don't trust the crucifix — as if the blood-mercies of Christ are for everyone else. They can't see or accept how God might use the sad tales and poor choices of the past to a good end. They stay outside, dreaming a nightmare of being lost eternally, because someone else has deemed or threatened it.
The other life-stealing thief is fear. We're an anxious culture. Name it. Fear is that thief which leaves us enervated, suspicious, sleepless, irritable and perhaps addicted. We can't trust that the God who has had a hand on us from the very start, who watches over us maternally, who has even perhaps staved off death and the worst possibilities, will just as surely see us through into tomorrow.
"Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves — regret for the past and fear of the future." What about it? Seriously addressing the question takes me to an entirely new religious/spiritual place.
