Theology, Disability, and Spiritual Transformation: Learning from ...

The paradox is that the experience of the desire for self-transcendence is, then, not only integrative of life but potentially disrupting. The experience of this desire for loving relation to the sacred, to the whole of Being, has a potentially “disintegrating effect” that can lead to addiction or to a kenotic self-emptying of all that is not in accord with this deepest desire at the root of personal identity.²⁰ Spiritual transformation at this level can thus be understood as a conscious and intentional process of the awakening of the heart to one's deepest identity in love through relation to, participation in, and union with the power of the sacred. This is a process in which all other desires and attachments are subordinated and in which all defenses to its experience are gradually exposed and relinquished in the surrender to the sacred experienced as love.

James Fowler makes a distinction between developmental change and what he calls healing or reconstructive change that is helpful in illumining transformation at this phenomenological level.²¹ The personal and social process of shaping life orientation and life structure in responsive relation to any given set of sacred images and values inevitably results in emotional and spiritual pain. This is a result not only because of the partial and finite character of these images and values as mediators of the Spirit but, more fundamentally, because of the limited and finite nature of the persons with whom they are in closest relationship. Core relationships are not only the matrix of forming meaning, belonging, and identity but also inevitably of wounding and betrayal. As human life unfolds, there inevitably come critical times of transition or loss that upset the equilibrium of mind and spirit that has been maintained and defended. These times of breakdown or breakthrough involve healing and reworking some of the underlying patterns of persons’ emotional and relational lives and making