Are you a prophet?

It has been my observation that the vast majority of people I have encountered, no matter where I have encountered them or the context in which I have encountered them, no matter their ethnicity, country of origin, political affiliation, profession, gender, sexual orientation, spiritual or religious affiliation and such—they tend to be or seem to be quite tribal at their core. What I mean with my use of the word tribal here is the adopting of some clear form of groupthink or group identity that strongly if not almost completely influences ones outward persona. I cannot speak to anyone else’s inner journey and struggles though often a person’s outer persona is a very good indication of what is going on internally as well, though not always.

There are in fact some situations where being strongly connected to groupthink and various identity groupings can prove to be very useful. Such a consciousness is very good for creating a strong sense of belonging among people who share the same ideas and ways of thinking as you do. It is very good for creating a sense of security in the sense of having some group of people being there who will almost always if not always agree with you in a discussion or a dispute. If one is a person who really wants to be a part of a group and is not particularly comfortable with going solo, or if one desires that type of security, being attached to some type of groupthink or some form of group identity and more or less playing by all the major rules of said group, then strongly adhered to groupthink and group identity will serve you very well. If you are a person who likes to be a part of a crowd or enjoys having a posse to back you up or enjoys having a posse that you can back up, again, belonging to some clearly quantifiable groupthink or group identity consciousness, or even more than one, will work splendidly for you. Hurray! Go Team Go!

I spend a fair amount of time on social media. One thing that became very evident very early on for me is that on threads where there are two or more dissenting opinions and where there are people on the thread who belong to identity groupings I am aware of even if those groupings are as broad as something like, “Christian conservative” or “liberal progressive social activist,” one can very easily predict with almost absolute certainty which side people are going to take. Further, if one is as observant, analytical, and as much of a student of human groupthink culture as I am, one can even predict with stunning and mind blowing accuracy the exact and very specific arguments various individuals who think along certain lines will take and express. So if predictability or having a pat set of arguments and “talking points” that you can be relied on to trot out, as if on cue, are things that matter to you, then belonging to groupthink and clearly adhered to identity group consciousness will absolutely be a benefit to you. These things however, often are not things that are of much use whatsoever to a prophet. In that case, in fact, such things are often very clear impediments.

Let me share some of my basic understanding of what a prophet is and isn’t, at least now in the 21^st century. A prophet is not a psychic. Absolutely not. There is nothing wrong with being a psychic. That just isn’t what a prophet is. A prophet is also not here to predict the future from his or her own intuitive awareness. Rather, being a prophet is essentially an act of obedience to something far outside of oneself. That is because a prophet is someone God uses to bring needed messages to God’s (He, She, It, They, Unfathomable Consciousness outside of All Fully Knowable Categories and Infinite Consciousnesses) people. The prophet agrees to do this unquestionably no matter what God’s message ends up being, even if (and sometimes especially if) that message goes against the prophets own personally held beliefs, political inclinations, ideological preferences, group allegiances, etc.  All prophets are simultaneously visionaries of some sort or another. However, not all visionaries are simultaneously prophets. All prophets are spiritual teachers of sorts. Yet again, all spiritual teachers are not prophets. Not at all. No.

The obedience that is part and parcel of the prophet’s calling is not a form of blind obedience. There is not much is the ordinary world that provides a good template for the very specific expression of obedience that is called for in one’s answered call to be a prophet. The closest I can immediately think of are the vows of obedience certain priests, brothers, and nuns in various Christian Orthodox sects, The Roman Catholic Church, and parts of the Anglican Communion, take. This is a form of submission (obedience) that is grounded in one’s faith and a faith in God although faith in God is not an absolute necessity or answering the call to be a prophet.

A prophet can be an adherent of any religion, any spiritual system, any wisdom tradition, or may be a strong adherent of multiple wisdom traditions all at once and very seriously so (syncretism), or be agnostic, or be an atheist. In some ways an atheist is well suited for being a prophet since, for example, an atheist does not have any inclination to shape his or her message to the constrictions of religious or some churches authority or currently accepted doctrine(s).

Being very excited about, being strongly dependent upon, or being heavily involved in groupthink and identity group consciousness, or getting a significant amount of ones sense of self or self-esteem from such can (though not always) be a strong impediment to being a prophet because prophets are often called to speak far outside of all known and adhered to group allegiances. There is a very important reason why Jesus is reported as saying, through words brought to us in the Christian bible’s Gospel of Mark, stating that a prophet is without honor in his own country. That reason is that prophets do not have to be and often are not culture bound. And they are not groupthink or identity consciousness bound either. And so anyone who feels an unswerving fidelity to a specific cultural way of thinking, to groupthink, or to identity group consciousness will be at a great disadvantage, at least at first, if such a person is also called to be a prophet. Being an independent thinker and being an iconoclast conversely are advantages to being a prophet, at least initially.

It is not easy to predict who will become a prophet. Many prophets have lived quite scandalous lives right up to the very point of answering the call to prophecy. Many others have answered the call to being a prophet shortly after some event involving great pain, grief, betrayal, or deep suffering. Often a prophet is in a state of anger, rage, jealousy, retribution, deep fear, isolation, lack of forgiveness or some similar state when the call to prophecy is first realized. God can and does use anyone in any state of mind to do God’s work. A pure or good heart however, is often required. There are many people who hide their good heart under various forms of grief and hurt and it is often in this state when one finds him or herself surprisingly, most susceptible to a prophet’s designation from God. This is often because, in the depths of the person’s experienced pain they have at some point called out to God for help out of a deep sense of desperation. God, please, if you are there please help me. I don’t know if I can go on. I feel so alone. Please Help Me. PLEASE! And this call is indeed answered, just not in the way the person ever expected it would be—it is answered through the assignment of being called to be a prophet. Hallelujah! Praise God!

A prophet can also simultaneously be a highly and extremely admired and popular spiritual teacher, guru, or spiritual master in one or more spiritual traditions. Even when this is the case however, this person will at least sometimes say things that will strongly offend the sensibilities of some of the most strident members of the prophet’s faith community and/or fan base.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton, and Martin Luther King, Jr are each men I believe were/are also prophets. Each was/are significantly well liked by many and very popular among various intersecting populations of people in the world. None however, shied (or in the case of Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh) shies away from making at least occasional highly controversial, shocking, and seemingly deeply antagonistic comments. Obviously women, all kinds of women—old women, young women, lesbian women, women who are religious leaders, feminist women, communist women, transwomen and more, can be and are currently serving as prophets in this world. These three men just happen to fit a specific type of example I wish to demonstrate right now. That is why I am focusing on these three men.

Thomas Merton was a catholic Trappist monk who also came under the auspices of a local superior (the local abbot), had serious, often heated and famous disagreements with his various superiors. He also often wrote and said things that were absolutely shocking to the catholic sensibilities of the time. There are Roman Catholics today, more than forty years after his death, who still consider him to be a stone cold heretic. Even though Merton had taken a vow of obedience, as a prophet, his highest vow of obedience was to God, not to his abbot, nor to the catholic laity, nor to The Roman Curia, and not even necessarily to his religious vows, at least not in their strictest, least spacious interpretations.

Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, in my opinion, is a flawless example of speaking truth to power. And that power was not exclusively aimed  at white America but also other black Christian pastors and ministers. This was shocking then and it would be shocking today because so much of being a member of the black power elite today, in America, is all about saying what the crowd wants you to say and being infinitely aware of what side one’s bread is buttered on—ideologically.

Thich Nhat Hanh had a speaking engagement in America planned on 9/11/2001 well in advance of the events of 9/11/2001. Once the “attacks on America” occurred on that day, many thought Thay would simply cancel his speaking engagement. He did not. And not only that, he chastised America for essentially acting like a bully in the world and reaping one of the expected outcomes of that bullying, on that very day. Some American Buddhists and non-Buddhist fans of Thich Nhat Hanh alike are probably still in shock about that; some are still probably lifting their jaws off of the floor. HA!

Each of those above stories are, in my view, extremely superb examples of The Prophets Way, as that expresses itself in our modern world. And so the purview of the prophet is not one for cowards, the thin skinned, shrinking violets, people who are terminally afraid of offending others, those who routinely second guess themselves, nor for those who are not absolutely grounded in the believed necessity of whatever it is he or she is spiritually guided to say. One may meet the requirement for one or more of those descriptors when one first becomes aware of being a prophet. However, be warned, one will have to drop it like it’s hot, once one fully takes on the assignment of being a prophet. Hallelujah! Praise God!