Six “I’s” and Three “me’s”

Lectionary Reflections

Galatians 2:15-21

In the Galatians passage Paul gives us in summary form what has been termed “Christ mysticism.” In verses 19-20 we have six “I’s” and three “me’s.” It is not clear what Paul means. There seems to be contradiction and Paul pushes the rules of speech beyond normal usage. “I died that I might live.” “I have been crucified, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” “I now live, I live by trust.” “Christ loved me, was given for me.” It is not obvious who the “I” or the “me is.” What are the living and the dying? Is there a part of us that lives and a part that dies? Does Christ replace us, in some sense? Is Paul suggesting a split personality? Spiritual schizophrenia? It is, to say the least psychologically confusing!

Yet, it reaches very deep into the tradition of mystical spirituality dealing with the inner world, the life of the mind and spirit. It seems that all the great traditions of spirituality bear witness to this bifurcation of the inner life. It has been characterized in the following ways, to name a few:

The inner and the outer.
“I” and “Christ.”
The human nature and the divine nature.
Human nature and Buddha nature.
The “true self” and the “false self.”
The flesh and the spirit.
The “old person” and the “new person.”
Self and no-self.

I am am going to use the typology of Tony De Mello. He uses “I” and the “me”: the “I” is the deeper self, the “me” the shallower. He suggests that most of us most of the time live in the “me,” but that the “I” looks at the “me.”

A few words about the “me.”

The “me” is created through attachments. When asked, “who are you?” The answer “I am asocial worker, I am a mother, I am Canadian, I am a Hindu, I am a priest” are all answers concerning the “me.” They do not speak of who we are in our deeper self. They are all transient attachments, contingent on some role, some function, something about life that will pass away. If identity is tied to those contingencies, when the contingency passes, what then of identity? I think that is what Jesus was referring to in the passage about marriage: that in heaven, there is no marrying or giving in marriage. Contingent attachments have passed. It is also why when someone loses their job; they continue to speak of themselves as a “something.” “I am a writer” becomes a very important statement even though I have had only one book published and that was twenty years ago. To take way that self-reference is to leave a vacuum and that is very painful if identity is built on such attachments.

It follows that the “me” is quite fragile, prone to change, easily hurt and damaged. It is why human life is so painful (inwardly painful). The “me” is the source of worry, anxiety, sleeplessness, anger, lust for things, frustration, grief, jealousy, joy of the shallower kind. It is problems with the “me” that fuels the talk therapy industry. It may also be why there is no end to talk therapy, because the me is constantly in change, in flux and demands attention. Talk therapy is not about the deeper self. The deeper self is silent.

A few words about the “I.”

It is deep, hidden, beyond words, like the wind or breath.
It comes to us not by strife, but as gift.
It is beyond theological or philosophical formulation or speculation.
We approach it through the via negativa. We can say what it is not rather than what it is.
It is the place of union with God, with the ultimately real.
It may be sought but not owned.
Theology, philosophy, liturgy, meditation, nature can lead us in the right direction (and sometimes in the wrong direction) but they are no the “I.” We often mistake the signifier for the thing signified.

Back to Paul’s writing. I think in Galatians Paul is grappling with these realities. Spirituality is concerned with a dying of the “me” and a discovering of the “I” and finding that the “I” is Christ. It is in the words of Jesus, to lose self (the me) in order to find self (the I).

There is universal testimony that life is happier when the true self is discovered, when attachments are viewed in their proper light. Yet, the true self is not sought for happiness sake, but for its own sake. In Socrates words, “virtue is its own reward.” The inner is its own reward.

+Ab. Andy