The scriptures for the Second Sunday of Lent (March 1st) give us clear examples of being caught in a double-bind. In the Mystery of Christ: Liturgy as Spiritual Experience Thomas Keating describes a double-bind as a situation in which one must choose between two courses of action and both courses are perceived to be the will of God. The choice may be agonizing as it was for Mary, an engaged virgin when she was asked to a mother and not by Joseph. In the first reading for Sunday, (abridged from Genesis 22) Abraham is direct to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain in the land of Moriah. Abraham and Sarah had waited all their lives for Isaac. He was the only promise of old age. Abraham goes forward, somehow trusting. He finds out that he will not have to sacrifice Isaac. The Lord promises;
I will bless you and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants will take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth will find blessing, because you obeyed my command.”
This story has produced endless commentary designed to explain the tension inherent in Abraham’s faith in God in the face of an apparent contradiction.
The double bind faced by the disciples after the transfiguration (Mk 9:2-10) is also dramatic. On the mountain, the disciples see the transfigured Jesus and learn that he is the Messiah, the one for whom Israel has waited. Yet,
As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
The disciples must have felt a strong urge to tell everyone the good news, yet they were urged to keep quiet. Their response?
So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.
The double-bind is not seen as a common spiritual experience - although I suspect that it is. We just don't recognize it because it does not occur in as dramatic a manner. In the most common form it is the challenge of choosing between two good courses of action, each of which seems desirable. Keating gives the example of persons who choose the contemplative life wishing that they were in the active life - or the reverse.
What should we do when in a bind? We can realize that others have gone forward in faith, asking the Lord to work out a solution and trusting that He will.
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