“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything,
no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.” — Carl Jung

The topic of Deconstruction first came across my feeds a couple of decades ago. At the time, I had already been exploring the various Christian denominations in which I had worked.

The label of “deconstructed” never felt right to me: It didn’t have an end, something more logical to stand on. To me personally, it felt like giving up on Jesus. Still, as I moved between different denominations as a minister, the doctrinal statement bullet points I was comfortable saying I “believed” in got gradually smaller.

As my recovery continues, similar transformations under different vocabularies became recognizable. Psychology described integration, where Scripture spoke of sanctification. Neuroscience spoke of cognitive restructuring, where the New Testament spoke of metanoia. Recovery programs described surrender like Jesus spoke of dying to oneself.

These were different languages pointing toward the same lived reality, a reality already contained within Scripture. The Bible’s words were much wider and deeper than I’d assumed.

A Reluctant Mystical Journey

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world,
as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss —
an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. — is sure to be noticed.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

Before my last drink, I was broken and gone. The inner turmoil was spinning out of control with increasingly self-destructive behavior.

My first day sober was September 11, 2021. The second and last rehab got things started, but it took time and a lot of lessons along the way. I was a 30-year-long train with cars of toxic cargo that had careened so far off course.

On Easter of 2024, about two and a half years since my last drink, I recommitted to becoming a disciple of Jesus. It was the moment Reconstruction started happening to me.

A lot of things were needed in my recovery, as alcohol was just the tip of the iceberg. Self-centeredness was a spiritual disease. Ego had its hand on everything, and I walked in shadows. Therapy, mindfulness, and journaling were an important part. Scriptural study and a morning practice were paramount. AA became an oasis.

Over time, as breakthroughs happened, moments of growth and healing accompanied confession of sins and acceptance of my role in everything. Little by little, I became freer from the bondage of self.

Before, I was a master at overthinking things. As that started to fade, everything became stupidly simple, often overwhelming, and profoundly real. Sometimes, the more I became aware of my inner mess and past wreckage, the more difficult life felt to bear. Progress was slow. Loneliness and depression were not strangers while I learned to stop cheating on joy. 

As a New Paule began to rise, the Old Paule could throw a fit and find something else to hide away in. Distractions are still dime a dozen.

Moments of joy or sobbing were often mixed with insights during worship and study. Mediation helped calm my mind, gave me some tools to work with, and has proven to be an unexplored world.

A journey that began a few years ago has turned into something that will never end.
And that was something I didn’t know I was looking for.

“The gospel of Jesus is not that you can go to heaven when you die.
The gospel is that you can live in the Kingdom of Heaven now. […]
The ‘kingdom of God’ is simply God in action. It is the range of God’s
effective will, where what He wants done is done.” — Dallas Willard

Bringing Me Back Home

This personal journey I shared is what Scripture calls the “mystery” of Christianity, just from my personal vantage point. Honestly, I had a hard time wrapping my mind, heart, and gut

around the fact that two thousand years of Christianity were happening to me, and no longer topics to be debated. It was far from a logical process.

Christianity first broke upon a mostly illiterate, war-ravaged, divided, and politically controlled world. After two millennia of the Gospel doing its work as humanity continued advancing, these deep and once mysterious truths are laid bare today.

Archaeology, manuscript evidence, Eastern traditions, and psychology are pointing more people from their own unique point of existence to similar truths. One of the highest spiritual truths is that the problem with the world is that “I” am. Until I can fully realize and apply the depths of this, I will also be able to find things to complain about, attach to, hide behind, etc.

Life has always been about the small, the here and now—truth in love being fully liberated to co-create with God and Creation. God is all in all. Human existence is fundamentally about being.

Heaven is meant to be on Earth today. Simply put, these became different names for the same transformation:

• Salvation is Awakening
• Sanctification is integration (becoming whole)
• Repentance is metanoia (a changing of mindset)
• “Die to self” is the surrender of our ego

We are Christ, if we choose it. Discipleship is becoming that.

Life is about being fully alive in Truth and Love, walking in the Light as He is, and healing the original division, described in Genesis 3, that Ego and Shadow bore. Doing this in a community is what a “church” is. We all can walk that kind of Path. Doing it together is what being a part of a body is about, a “sangha” of people trying to walk in the same kind of way.

“True spirituality is not a soft, mystical escape from reality,
but a profound engagement with it…It is a
moment-by-moment crucifixion of the flesh,
a moment-by-moment yielding to the Holy Spirit.”
— Francis Schaeffer

A Community of Communities

Whatever tradition someone begins in, or without, the work of surrender, truthfulness, humility, forgiveness, and self-giving love is recognizable. The mystery Christianity offered 2000 years ago, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” is real. No special understanding is required to access it: just surrender.

Each of us, especially now, can meet Jesus within our own belief system, as long as we can let go of it enough to make room for Jesus to breathe and work. Among many things, Jesus is good medicine.

It doesn’t matter if it might be a different name or another form: the world’s endgame is already in sight. Jesus’ Gospel has already spread throughout the world and affected everything. It’s the same Awakening trembling beneath everyone’s feet.

If you’re walking such a path, and you go through a dark, lonely season of becoming, know you are not alone: you are seen. You are blessed with God’s presence. We were never alone.

We already have everything we need (2 Peter 1:3-11). Whatever we might be resisting, afraid of, broken by, ashamed of, controlled by, etc., is exactly what is for us to go through. The Divine waits for us there while walking with us now.

The choice between life and death, good and evil, was always ours to make. ”Everyone wants change, but no one wants to change,” or “Be the change you want to see in the world,” can no longer be treated as mere clichés, but must serve as personal statements for becoming.

If enough of us can let go of enough baggage, we could dance with each other and the Divine.

My hunch, or maybe foolish prayer, is that enough people get it. If so, maybe more can trust and lean into the path God placed before them, daring it together to find out what is on the other side of Resurrection.

There’s much work to be done and dancing to be had.

Trust God. Love People. Live Fully.

“We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.”
— Richard Rohr