I suspect and fear that the journey inward will take me to a place of authentic spiritual death. I am familiar with the common teachings on spiritual death. But I keep learning anew that there are levels within and that those levels are deep enough to tempt me to rest. If I stay on that level, I will have achieved significant spiritual results, but I will end my journey into the ultimate depths.
Ultimate spirituality for Jesus resulted not just in his physical death, but his shame and perhaps most damaging of all, his seeming inconsequentiality.
No one today can doubt that his life was consequential. Christians would call it the most consequential event in the history of mankind. But at the time of his death, he was a minor – very minor – celebrity. He did not have enough followers to even vote for his reprieve.
Jesus lived a life that was seemingly inconsequential.
So did Paul.
I find it harder to abide with this notion of inconsequentiality, than I do to abide with suffering, persecution, and death.