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I particularly enjoyed the articles on nature, the Hidden Picture, and “Goofus and Gallant.” For those of you who are unfamiliar, Goofus and Gallant were two boys placed in the same situation each week. As you might guess, each week they responded differently. It was an effective way to teach young children moral behavior.
I sometimes wonder if I don’t sometimes get stuck at the Goofus and Gallant level of religion, where what matters is whether my actions are seen as sinful or saintly. To me, this seems rather like looking at mathematics only in terms of addition and subtraction. There are higher levels of mathematics—and there is certainly higher spirituality.
In the Gospels, Jesus doesn’t appear to be interested in teaching morality. If anything, he tends to call into question traditional moral norms. Rather, more in keeping with calculus, Jesus appears to be interested in bringing people closer and closer to Abba, close enough to participate in God’s very life. The spiritual journey, as depicted in the Gospels, is a path beyond the dualism of being a Goofus or a Gallant - a path marked by experiencing oneself being loved regardless of how often one goofs up or how gallant one might think oneself to be.
For me, the journey began when I knew myself to be a loved mixture of Goofus-ness and Gallant-ness. As that dualism began to lose its power to bisect and distort my notion of myself and others, guilt and self-righteousness began to drain away, along with the desire to judge others. This draining away, this emptying the self of simplistic morality, leaves a spaciousness within - a spaciousness through which grace, God’s very life, can flow unabated.