Through Stained Glass: Salvation--Transformation--Enneagram-ation

A baptismal font that hangs on Adam's wall. Baptism is the
bond of unity in Jesus Christ. When we are baptized,
we are made one with Christ, with one another, and with
the Church of every time and place.

Have you found your true self yet?

Don’t worry; you’re not alone.

Salvation is the ongoing journey of living into our baptismal identity—the new creation we receive upon our baptism. In our baptisms, the old self—the self that is controlled by ego and the external demands of the world—dies, and the new self—the new creation guided by love and the Spirit—lives. In baptism we are given our original names:

Beloved.

The journey of living into our identity as God’s beloved is what Paul refers to in Philippians 2. When we discover our true selves, that’s when we live as residents of the reign of God. You are not asked to be me; nor am I asked to be you. You must embrace out your salvation, as I must workout mine. Together, however, we can help each other become who God has created us to be.

Embracing salvation is a journey—a death and resurrection experience. Jesus taught us that in order to find life, we must lose our lives. We lose our lives by emptying ourselves of all that gets in the way of Life. What gets in the way of Life are the ways we put ourselves against one another. Or the way we stand in our own way.

Jesus said it wouldn’t be easy. “The cup that I must drink, you must also drink.” The journey of salvation is not found in doctrines or correct information or even practicing the right morality. The journey of salvation is made daily, often slowly, with mystery as the guide. Even the disciples tried to make the journey about being right (see Mark 10.38). Jesus showed us the way to life, and he taught us the way of love by loving others. Only in selfless service to God through love of God and neighbor as ourselves will we truly experience the transformation Jesus spoke of when he said, “the truth will set you free.”

Here’s the thing: we cannot transform ourselves. Only God can do that. And anyone who has walked a great distance with God knows this reality. One theologian puts it this way:

“There are two utterly different forms of religion: one believes that God will love if I change; the other believes that God loves me so that I can change!”

Once we move past our egos—or the false self we’ve worked endlessly to create—we will discover the gift of our True Self.

What do we have to help us get back to where we once belonged? Scouts have a compass. Pirates have treasure maps. Christ has given us the Word. Wisdom presents us with the Enneagram. Where Meyers-Briggs and Strength Finder offer entertaining insights into our personality, it is the Enneagram that is concerned with change and making a turnaround. This kind of sounds like the word repent, huh? The Enneagram confronts us with compulsions and laws under which we live—usually without being aware of it—and it invites us to go beyond them… to take steps into the domain of freedom.

It’s here, in the freedom of our awareness and the awareness of our freedom, where we encounter our True Self.