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Fowler’s (2000) model of
Universalizing Faith (stage 6) is the perfect model for Pastoral
Presence and the spiritually mature and enlightened being. The Stage 6
individual has resolved the paradox of the Generative Stage 5
individual. In Stage 5 or the Conjunctive stage of faith, one can
become immobilized in compassion because one is caught up in polarities
and loyalties. The individual feels a tension of consciousness and
commitment, meaning that she can become paralyzed by decisions and
choices. People in Stage 5 often long for a transforming newness, yet
their integrity and commitment keeps them tied to institutions and
persons in their community. They live in the tensions of paradox, and
“being in but not of the world, they feel a cosmic
homelessness and loneliness” (p. 54). This loneliness may lure them to
the stage of Universalizing faith.
Universalizing faith
represents the radical completion of two tendencies (Fowler, 2000). The
first tendency is called decentration from self. With each stage of
faith development the individual has broadened his perspective of care
and responsibility to include larger groups. At Universalizing faith,
the individual expands his group to include all of humanity. This means
‘knowing’ the world through the eyes and experiences of persons, faiths,
and nationalities quite different from one’s own. The circle of those
who ‘count’, meaning those who are important and personally embraced as
worthy, significant, and holy, has expanded to all of humankind.
The second tendency is
called decentration of valuing and valuation. This means that the
individual is no longer attached to personal things, issues, or beliefs
that define identity and ego. The universalizing individual takes a
viewpoint from the eyes of the Creator, and she values self and others
not from the standpoint of protecting her own ego and vulnerability.
Rather, she begins a process of kenosis or emptying of the self, letting
go of ego or identity attachments (Fowler, 2000).
The Universalizing
individual has a certain detachment from the results of her actions.
She does what she must do out of the pure motive of right intention, and
then she has no concern for the results. Her prestige, power, and
goodness matter little to her, because she is doing God’s work. She is
not concerned whether her actions will be criticized or devalued by
others, or whether they will reflect on her personally, because she has
no attachment to preserving or protecting the ego. She attaches herself
to the radical values of the Creator, and she works from the Creator’s
perspective. Fowler (1987) emphasizes that this is not so much a state
to be attained as it is a way of being. Indeed, it is the way of the
fully illuminated Mystic or the Bodhisattva.
In the universalizing
self, one is God-grounded. The “self is drawn beyond itself into a new
quality of participation and grounding in God,
or the Principle of Being” (Fowler,
1987, p. 75). Self is no longer the reference point, because one
identifies with God’s way of knowing and valuing other creatures. One
sees all of life through God’s eyes. They are “colonists of the Kingdom
of God” (p. 76). This does not imply perfection but rather a
perspective on the global order. It moves beyond grounding in ego to
grounding in the Divine within oneself. Individuals at this stage of
faith live as if the Kingdom of God were already a realized fact, and
they create “zones of liberation and redemption” around them.
This is a frightening
proposition for most because it demands vulnerability and surrender, two
aspects that the ego resists. The ego fears its own extinction in
surrender, and it fears being overwhelmed if it is vulnerable.
Transformation to stage 6 demands both. We must learn to “Practice the
Presence” as did Brother Lawrence, and through vulnerability and
surrender, we awaken to our true identity.
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