The Prayer of the Frog Called into Question

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 1999 by T.K. Thomas

   Throw him out. Fall back on my inner resources. Fall back on the God who is
   in me? Do away with the religious practices which I do out of habit? Stop
   turning to the Bible and the catechism books for norms of conduct? Listen
   to the Spirit speaking within me? Test the memorized doctrines on the anvil
   of reason and experience? Trust myself into the hands of the Mystery which
   works mightily in the universe?(30)

Explaining what he means, de Mello tells him:

   One day you may say, "I found God, I know him, he is so and so, he is there
   and there, he is in me, in creation, in the eucharist ..." That is a day of
   disaster for you because you will have found your God, your own projection,
   so pitiful and small. These gods - these idols - in turn keep us pitiful
   and small. We would fight for them ... They can be terrible ... Mystery
   does not require defenders. Idols do. Mystery makes us humble.(31)

The friend concludes his testimony with the confession: "I have experienced the anxiety and the dangers and the rewards of throwing away crutches."

What then, can the church offer? Having discarded doctrines and dogmas, creeds and catechisms, scriptures and sacraments, where does one go for a glimpse of God? Without the discipline and the practice of faith - the service of God which is "perfect freedom" - the compliance these demand and the consolation they provide, how does one know of God? "Pity the poor atheist" de Mello once said, "who feels grateful but has no one to thank." Do the liberated mystics feel grateful and, if they do, whom do they thank?

In one of the stories in The Song of the Bird the writer goes to the Truth Shop to buy not partial but the whole truth, without deceptions, defences and rationalizations. The salesman warns him that the price is very high, but he is determined to get it whatever the cost. The price is nothing less than his whole security, which is far more than he can afford to part with. "I came away with a heavy heart. I still needed the safety of my unquestioned beliefs."(32)

Not that de Mello's beliefs were at any time "unquestioned". Faith, for him, was "not the accumulation of certainties but the capacity to doubt".(33) The doubts and questionings were a help and not a hindrance in his sustained search for a truly ecumenical spirituality that affirmed the world and was not a means of escaping from it.

The testimony of one who was not moved by "the magic of Tony" is far more revealing than the enthusiastic approbation of de Mello's friends and disciples. This friend says:

   What I have received from him is the challenging example of a Jesuit who
   daringly looked into the phony mythologies of religion as it is lived, and
   had the courage to say aloud that "the emperor has no clothes" ... I cannot
   honestly say that I have been very deeply "influenced" by Tony in my
   personal spiritual search and formation. But in the earlier stages of my
   quest for a meaningful spirituality and humanity for myself, Tony was an
   inspiring example to me to do my own search without fear and without
   relying too much on other people to guide me.(34)