On the surface the title for this inspirational reflection
seems absurd. You don’t have to have
advanced college degrees to know what the word, deprivation, means. It means something that is taken away from me
or something that is withheld from me.
Normally, if someone says that they have been deprived, it is a
complaint. They often say something
like, “I was ripped off!”
I reckon that most of us would see deprivation as totally
negative. No one in their right mind
would hope to be deprived of anything at any time. So with this title, I suspect you think that
I am up to no good. Surely there is
something fishy going on here! So let me
develop a little more the idea of blessed deprivation.
I am not sure what triggered the thoughts in my mind. I was in the middle of a group that I offer
some leadership. We were focusing on a
particular chapter in Gerald May’s book, The
Awakened Heart. In that chapter May
addresses the idea of making space. He
talks some about emptiness. But I
honestly don’t know whether he mentions the word, deprivation, or whether
someone else mentioned it. I do remember
blurting out at one point, “blessed deprivation.” In my mind that phrase fit the moment.
I am fairly confident the phrase is one I made up and that
May does not use it. I think the phrase
only makes sense if we put it in a spiritual context. Spiritually I do think there is a role for
being deprived. And I think in that
context, deprivation does not ultimately have to be seen negatively. Deprivation can be positive…or at least, lead
to positive outcomes.
I am willing to grant the idea of deprivation makes positive
sense only for people, like me, who have enough and often have more than
enough. If people living in poverty or
starving were told deprivation was spiritually good for them, I am sure that is
a travesty. In that sense this message
is for people like me---people with enough and more than enough.
To be deprived means that I have something taken away from
me---something I presume I want or, even, deem something that I need. It becomes a blessed deprivation if I can see
that whatever was taken away is good for me spiritually speaking. Let me offer a concrete example.
The spiritual discipline of fasting is one of the classical
spiritual disciplines. Most major
religious traditions recognize there is a positive spiritual role for
fasting. I recall a line from Richard
Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline,
where he says that fasting helps us learn what controls us. Fasting is a blessed deprivation when it
takes away some particular foods in order to let us focus spiritually on what
controls us.
Not all forms of deprivations are blessed. Deprivations become blessed when they drive
us to entertain and embrace something spiritual in the process of being
deprived. If deprivations lead only to
whining and moaning, then there is no reason to say the deprivations are
blessed.
I fear we are living in a time when many of us---in this
country at least---have sufficient stuff that we feel threatened or, perhaps,
irritated if we face some form of deprivation.
If you don’t think you are in this camp, consider this small
example. How dependent on electricity
are you? Does your lifestyle presuppose
the ready, unceasing availability of electricity?
My life unconsciously presupposes that electricity is always
there and functioning to make my technological life flow smoothly. I get up before the sun and go to bed after
the sun has given away to darkness. I am
connected to my world through electrons, etc.
When the electricity goes out, I panic and whine. “Life has become impossible,” I wail! Of course, that is nonsense. But life does change in the moment.
Staying with this example, being deprived of electricity
could become a blessed deprivation if I can face it and deal with it
spiritually. It does change my
lifestyle. Can I use this “life
interruption” in a positive sense? Can I
sleep a little more? Can I choose to
read something spiritually uplifting instead of watching some sports program on
tv that I really don’t even care about?
Can I light some candles and give the night a nuance that has some
charm?
My deprivations provide the opportunity to “do the
spiritual” in a different way. Can I
learn to be more grateful and less grumpy?
Can I learn to be more tolerant instead of being ticked off? I would like to be more mellow and less
maniacal! Teach me, Lord, to grow and
not growl.
This reflection offers two things. In the first instance, I am thankful to be
reminded that I have enough. Actually, I
admit that I have more than enough---of nearly everything. And secondly, if some of it is taken away, I
want to learn to see it as a blessed deprivation and to grow spiritually from
it.
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