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| Doctor Strange and the Ancient One |
On my flight home from Boston this past Sunday, I settled in
to watch the remake of the film version of Doctor
Strange.[1] Marvel Comics fans will be familiar with
the story. Dr. Stephen Strange is a
renowned, but arrogant, surgeon (imagine that!); the center of his own
world. He only takes the most
interesting and challenging cases, those that will burnish his reputation. If a case seems hopeless, or beneath his
talents, he couldn’t be bothered. Beneath
the surface of his success he is driven by an outsized fear of failure. Nothing – and no one – is allowed to
penetrate his façade of self-sufficiency and control.
When Strange suffers a near-fatal automobile accident that
leaves his hands partially paralyzed, his worst nightmare is realized. He can no longer perform surgery. In response, he doubles down on his refusal
of vulnerability, driving away the very people who most love him and desire to
help him find another way to live. He
squanders his resources trying vainly to restore his hands, leaving him lonely,
penniless, and despairing.
Desperate, he learns of a man who has miraculously recovered
from a seemingly hopeless spinal cord injury; a man Strange had turned away as
a hopeless case. Strange tracks him down
at a basketball court, and is stunned to discover that the man has indeed made
a full recovery. He presses the man to
reveal the source of his healing, leading him on a quest to Kathmandu and the
monastery of Kama-Taj.
Strange has no idea what he will find there, but he has nowhere
else to turn. When he finally arrives at
Kama-Taj after much searching, he encounters the mysterious Ancient One, a
spiritual master, who challenges all of his preconceptions. When she suggests that there is a level of
spiritual healing that is more than merely physical, Strange is contemptuous,
declaring, “There is no such thing as spirit.
We are made of matter and nothing more.”
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Might St. James be your Kama-Taj, a place to which you are
driven out of a desperate desire for healing?
We all carry wounds in need of healing; some visible, many deeply hidden. Perhaps you share Dr. Strange’s nagging fear
of failure, of not being good enough, unable to meet some standard you have
internalized. You worry that others,
even God, will reject you. If nothing
else, we all carry the wound of mortality, the fear of death, wondering if we
really are nothing more than matter, an accidental confluence of atoms in an
ultimately dark and cold universe that briefly flickers into being and then is
snuffed out forever.
We arrive here and encounter the Ancient One, Jesus, who
invites us to realize our true identity – so much more than mere matter. We settle for the regard of others, a good
reputation, and the earthly treasures we so assiduously pursue. We have our reward. But there is so much more that we desire, a
heavenly treasure of surpassing value that our Father/Mother wishes to give us
in secret.[2]
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Only after an overwhelming demonstration of spiritual power
that literally blows his mind, does Strange become willing to explore the
Ancient One’s teaching. But Strange is a
slow learner. He does not open himself
readily to mystery, to spiritual power that he neither understands nor fully
controls. He has great difficulty with
spiritual practices. In frustration, his
damaged hands still weak and shaking, he pleads with the Ancient One, “how do I
get from here to there?” – to the healing I desire. She responds, as spiritual masters to often
do, with her own question, “How did you get to reattach severed nerves and put
a human spine back together bone by bone?”
“Study and practice,” replies Strange, “years of it.”
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Years of study and practice.
Whoever said spiritual growth is supposed to be quick and easy? Karen
Armstrong, the well-known historian of religion, notes that all of the great
religious traditions advanced the development of human consciousness, awareness
of the transcendent dimension of life, primarily by developing practices that
changed people at a profound level. But
we have to be willing to be changed. We
have to commit ourselves to ethical behavior and disciplined habits of
awareness and compassion.[3]
This is the heart of Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the
Mount. Our practices of piety (justice
and righteousness might be a better translation) are in the service of others,
not ourselves. They invite a
transfiguration of the self from being self-serving to other-serving, from
being self-centered to being God-centered.
The great truth is this: “It is not about you.”
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Dr. Strange throws himself into spiritual study and practice
with the same resolve with which he mastered Western medicine, and makes
remarkable progress in the mystical arts; yet, his hands remain partially
paralyzed. He becomes less
self-preoccupied as he is slowly drawn into Kama-Taj’s larger mission of
resisting the forces of evil that seek to dominate and destroy life on
earth. In the climactic meeting between
Dr. Strange and the Ancient One, Strange realizes that he has a choice to
make. He can use his new-found spiritual
power to cure his hands and go back to his old way of life, or he can accept
his woundedness and discover a more profound healing in an entirely new way of
life in service to others.
The old fear of failure still haunts Dr. Strange. As the Ancient One comments earlier in the
film, “We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them.” Strange isn’t sure he is up to the challenge
of this new way of life. “Surrender, Stephen,” the Ancient One assures
him. “Silence your ego and your power
will rise.”
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The imposition of ashes that we receive today is an outward
sign of the inward acceptance of our woundedness, our demons, our
mortality. Our wounds never really go
away, but neither need they define us. We can engage in spiritual practices for
ourselves alone, regarding our wounds as impediments to an old self-centered
way of life. It was that sort of
approach that earned Jesus’ withering dismissal of those who “already have
their reward.” We can settle for earthly
treasure. These ashes represent a commitment
to seek a deeper healing in service others.
When we accept our wounds, we can begin to learn from
them. We can integrate them into a
larger wholeness that is generative of wisdom and compassion. When the resurrected Jesus appears to his
disciples, his wounds remain visible.[4] They do not disappear, but rather become the
touchstone of healing for others. They
are a source of power: cracks in our well-defended ego through which the power
of God emerges to resist evil and mend the world.
Like Dr. Strange, we have a choice. We can pursue a superficial healing, making
the wounds go away only to resume a mundane, unenlightened existence, much like
the fellow on the basketball court who sent Dr. Strange on his quest in the
first place. Or, we can embrace our
wounds, silencing our ego so that we can give voice to a deeper truth, a more
encompassing healing, that unites us with Christ’s mission of reconciling all
things to God.[5]
Our reception of the Blessed Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood
unites us with Christ in his self-sacrifice, his self-giving, offering our own
brokenness for the healing of the world.
In this Sacrament we open ourselves to a transcendent power that reveals
the glory of God’s love and mercy at work in the world in and through us. We
realize the truth of St. Paul’s paradoxical acclamation: “Whenever I am weak,
then I am strong.”[6]
Our mortality unites us with the great cycle of death and
resurrection in which all things are being made new. When we consciously choose to step into the
flow of this powerful energy of love, when we silence the ego, we realize the
greater reward, the heavenly treasure.
The kingdom of God is among you.[7] Today is the day of salvation.[8] We can let go of our death-grip on the old
way of life to which we cling, so that we can receive the new life that God
desires for us. We can choose the deeper
healing.
[1]
Doctor Strange, Marvel Studios &
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016.
[2]
Matthew 6:1-21.
[3]
Karen Armstrong, The Great
Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), pp. xiii-xiv.
[4]
Luke 24:38-40; John 20:24-29.
[5]
II Corinthians 5:17-21.
[6]
II Corinthians 12:8-10.
[7]
Luke 17:21.
[8]
II Corinthians 6:2.
