The authority of ‘tradition’ may not be much these days, but I’m beginning to think it may be all we have. Each of the words in that sentence is specific to the musing-task I have in mind this morning: authority, tradition, much, these days, beginning, think, may be, all, we, have.
Recently, I asked (in another context) how one authorizes the teachers in life, by which I mean “teachers for a path of spiritual maturity and integrity.” How do we decide that someone’s word or teaching is better than another’s? When do we—and are we aware of it at the time—“pledge our troth,” so to speak, to such a teaching, to such a person’s contribution to our learning? Today, however, I’m drawn to the power, the compelling authority, that traditions of faith/practice have for some of us, and clearly not for others of us, in this (un)conscious discernment and decision-making for a such a path.
Sometimes this is asked within the lens of certification: how does one get certified as a leader or teacher within a tradition of faith/practice (recognizing that in some traditions, a leader and a teacher may be different roles)? What is the process, duration, cost, and endpoint for being a leader/teacher of a tradition?
Other times it is approached through definitions of tradition. My favorite of these is also a most abstract one (go figure). Alasdair MacIntyre, a moral ethicist/philosopher from Notre Dame, described a tradition as “a living argument.”[1] In this sense, a tradition is a long-standing way of being in human community, structured by practices (a definition we will leave for posterity’s sake) with both goods and observable ends, which are continually enacted and evolving such that disagreement and discernment fund a living ‘argument’ about who and how and what it means to be within this community, as participant and as collective. See what I mean? Abstract. But this ‘buys’ a way of thinking about ‘tradition’ unhinged from religious identities, which I find compelling. In his terms, you can stand within a tradition of scientific discipline, tennis, golf, religious belief, ethnicity, etc. Personally, I think it’s good for religious people to be de-stabilized enough to see that what they do, while having ultimate significance for them, can be likened to what others do with vastly different nuances of ‘ultimate.’ [Neither is humbling religious folks a bad thing, I’ve found. Our path of maturity often requires it and staid notions of ‘tradition’ can prevent it, so along with an accurate sense of oneself (limited, humble, etc.), learning, growth, delight, and more may never occur.]
This topic of musing is also complicated by the fact that many of us find ourselves in a tradition that we did not consciously choose. We belong to a ‘living argument’ we didn’t start, in other words, but one we feel compelled to finish, for some reason. Good conversation partners in my life have pushed me here, in their desire to lessen the significance of ‘tradition.’ “Since there are so many different religions,” they would say, “none could be the only one. So how is it logical to commit to one ultimate, when you can’t prove that it’s the ultimate one? Furthermore, your unchosen social and biological location—i.e. family of origin—determines your belief structure, your tradition. How can that be true for you, therefore?” Often the tone here suggests such determination is a bad thing, something to be resisted. Without delving into the many religions/one religion quagmire—a tradition unto itself, by now—we do need to note that each of us does find him/herself in a pre-existing tradition, or at least, a governing narrative about tradition(s). Sometimes it’s one of adherence to an existing tradition, at all internal and external costs. Other times, it’s rejection of a tradition, with different internal and external costs. ‘Tradition’ is a living argument, even in its constitution and understanding. Before you ever get to its practices, its wisdom of the years.
So why bother? you may ask. Why learn a particular tradition (when there are so many of them to choose from) or why seek teachers within particular, more narrowly-defined traditions (when one could commit to teachers in any and all of them)? Why is certification within a tradition of practice worthwhile or valuable? How do you know if the tradition in which you find yourself is the one that will be true for your path?
The cool thing about these questions is that our answers are near-infinite. Those of us in the ‘business’ of teaching/learning within historically rooted traditions (in my case, Christianity) come into this work as our path from incredibly diverse origins, with incredibly diverse ends. Hence, living argument. This also means that the reasons to learn a tradition or seek teachers within a tradition become inarticulate for our purposes here. Simply too many of them. I can speak of my own path, however, my own reasoning.
I stand and live within a particular, historically rooted tradition because of the “too-muchness” of life for my own mind, body, spirit, personhood. Sometimes this “too-muchness” overflows my “me” with celebration, delight, ecstacy, pleasure, laughter and more. In those times, not only do I want to share it with those who live and work outside my communities, but I want to share it with those who have had similar experiences, sensations, histories. I want to be with those who speak a similar language and have been shaped in similar settings of community life, practice, steps on the path. Other times, this “too-muchness” demands more of me than I can withstand on my own. It overwhelms what resources and ways of thinking I have, such that I am pushed to lean on “wisdom that works.” Well-defined traditions with long-standing records of response to such situations offer such a wisdom. Not band-aids I’ve found along the side of the road on my particular pathway, for this particular pain or that particular scrape, but coherent and longstanding wisdom(s) of surgery and medicine within which band-aids may be an element. The best way to proceed in the delicate demands of “surgery” and medicine, I’ve found, is to surrender to one’s own doctor or species of care. In pain, it’s better to be able to trust oneself to familiar doctors and read the medicine boxes in one’s own language, wouldn’t you agree? So, the “too-muchness” of life, in both pleasure and pain, pushes me to commit to a particular, historically rooted tradition, though I am well aware of the value in all such traditions.
I bother with learning/teaching within a particular tradition, therefore, as a steward of gifts and wisdom given to me, ways of becoming fully human that have shaped my own mind-body-spirit and that I have found, do find, valuable, trustworthy, worth stewarding. I don’t know the ‘grand scheme’ of a world of multiple traditions, but I can guess that each has particular gifts to offer an enriching life possible in an ever-evolving world—biologically-, psychologically-, socially-, culturally-configured. And just because I have found myself in a particular tradition doesn't mean that it's more or less true for wisdom within my experience. Does it guide me toward growth, disruptive transformation, nurture in the broadest sense? Does it offer a language and life in my path? Then it's a living tradition in which truth can speak. If I don't experience newness, growth, disruption, transformation, change...? Well, then I'm not living a tradition anyway, so the question is moot.
“These days” offer additional and necessary “refining fire” for our understandings of and engagement with ‘tradition’(s). Popular conception of ‘tradition’ seems to lead to sectarian violence, tribalism, us/them polarizations driven by fear, loss, grief. Ways of recognizing traditions of life, aimed toward life-giving wisdom, appear necessary in imagination, articulation, modeling, and teaching. A new beginning, logically, begins there. Here. So how to proceed, committing to a particular—so as to value it ultimately—while growing into recognition of the many—so as to value persons, ‘others’ of oft-conflicting habits/practices/wisdom?
At the very least, such beginning will entail new conceptions of “we” amidst longstanding practices of “thinking together.” How big can our “we” get before it gets lost? will be important listening to engage. A tentativeness, lived with particular and tenacious commitment, also seems necessary. Some of us call these “humble absolutes.” Others a movement from convicted knowing into unknowing, perhaps ‘back again,’ returning as if for the first time.
We may resist it, in liberal habits of mind and fear of tribalistic traditions, but the “wisdom that works” across traditions of all kinds puts all the individual words in the second sentence into a coherent plausibility. ‘Tradiition’ recognized for its life-giving offerings does author new life. It gains an authority of years in personal experience and narrative, across generations. It forces a collective to come into being, a “we” that needs to think together about how we/it is a community and what it means to practice in such a communal fashion. I know no other vehicle for facing the “too-muchness” of life, though there are certainly multiple expressions of ‘tradition’ that provide proven-and-yet-diverse ways for facing such “too-muchness.” And “these days,” ‘tradition’ is a locus of old-birthing-the-new, a focal point of argument for how to live wisdom forward. Traditional folks don’t always get it right, but we do know that getting it wrong is part of the human pathway to living wisdom forward. As Richard Rohr says in his new book, "We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right." (Falling Upward, xxii).
I may not like to admit it, with as much frustration and with as much failure as I observe in my own particular religious ‘traditioning,’ but it’s increasingly difficult to deny that 'tradition' for new life and a new sense of being human together is unavoidable. It may not be 'tradition' as 'we' think of it together today, but the living and ever expanding argument that is human beings, in particular and together as a people, will inevitably remain a 'tradition.' Such is all a we can have, in the end.
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