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Coming Home to Ourselves and Others

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When we observe infants and small children, we may notice their efforts to learn to crawl, to walk to talk, to learn. They exhibit a tremendous drive, however unconsciously, to grow and develop in all these ways. We may also notice how they respond to smiles, to affection, to genuine caring, and how they shy away from coldness, indifference, and hostility.

Recently, we spoke of loneliness and solitude. On the one hand, loneliness involves a sense of disconnection and not belonging. On the other hand, creative solitude is the experience of being quietly at home with ourselves in a safe and silence space. In the beginnings of solitude, there may be a sense of uneasiness. Gordon Cosby has expressed it well, in a manner akin to that of Henri Nouwen. “Silence,” he writes, “will put us in touch with yearnings, anxieties, pain, despair, envy, competition, and a host of other feelings that need to be put into words if we are to move toward a place of centeredness and come into possession of our lives. The fact is that most of us have an incredible amount of unfaced suffering in our histories that has to be looked at and worked through.”

Dag Hammarskjold has written strikingly of this experience of silence in solitude in his journal, Markings. “The longest journey is the journey inwards; of one who has chosen their destiny, who has started upon the quest for the source of their being.”

In this journey within solitude, we may ask what lies beneath the array of feelings, the mindsets, the presuppositions, all the cultural baggage that has been imposed by our background, our society, our culture. The above example of the child suggests that it is perhaps a profound longing from our inmost core. The experience of the child may also reveal the nature of this longing. It appears to be a longing for life itself, for its unfolding in growth; a longing for understanding and meaning; a longing for love. Perhaps it may be summed up as a longing for home, a longing to be at home to ourselves, which in turn makes possible being at home to one another..

Keeping busy, running to externals, losing ourselves in distractions, is a way of running from ourselves, of being, so to speak, homeless. It may well be rooted in fear, a fear that to journey within may uncover only emptiness. Yet, if we have a sacred worth, we need not fear who we are, or look to an outside authority to rescue us from ourselves, or tell us what to do. Rather we may gradually make the discovery that who we are at our inmost core is of worth and trustworthy. This uncovering may require the clearing away of the debris of imposed and inauthentic images and scripts and worldviews.

This understanding is, I believe, the core of the Narcissus story, It is the challenge to discover an image of ourselves as lovable. It seems also to be the heart of the story of the Prodigal Son. After many wrong turns, he discovers a sacredness within himself, one that is deeper and remains despite any brokenness. As Meister Eckhardt puts it:”There is a place is us that has never been wounded.”

We may then look to others, including literature, music, and the other arts, not to tell us what to do, but to help us discover, or rather uncover, and name who we are. As we noted, there is an immense longing within us: for awareness, love, meaning, beauty, and so much else. It may also be described as a longing for home: a longing to be present to who we truly are and to one another as we all truly are.

Our very sacredness can instill in us the hope that this longing is not in vain, that our lives do have a lasting meaning, a lasting worth and purpose. In this sense that meaning is to struggle gradually to move beyond fear to love, beyond despair to hope, beyond resentment to gratitude. In this process, we are especially assisted by those who genuinely care.

May you come to find a home within yourselves, and so also, become a home to one another.
Norman King, August 29, 2024.

Thoughts on Loneliness and Solitude

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Two striking issues in our time are a pervasive loneliness and an absence of solitude. Both of these tend to undermine our sense of worth. Both are also made worse by the excessive even addictive use of cell phones. Two personal experiences illustrate the difference between a painful loneliness and a more tranquil solitude. I recall going to conferences in an unfamiliar city and hotel. Sitting in that hotel room, empty of any connections or warmth, felt very lonely. On other occasions, I would find myself in my own home, when others who lived there and with whom my life was bound up, were absent. It was an enjoyable time alone, not just as a welcome relief, but because there was an atmosphere of familiarity, warmth and presence.

As an example of loneliness, there comes to mind an all too common situation. A while ago, I saw four people in a restaurant, apparently two parents and their teenage children. All were on their cell phones and no one was looking at or speaking to anyone else at the table. They are texting someone else. It has been reported that young people today are lonelier than ever before. One element here is that in cell phone contact, what is missing is tangible physical presence. In case of texting, contact by sight or voice or body language is absent–everything that gives colour and nuance. It is these forms of tangible presence elements alleviate unnecessary loneliness

Certainly, there is an inevitable loneliness that is part of the human condition. If lived with recognition and acceptance, this inescapable loneliness can lead to greater awareness, sensitivity, and compassion. Yet there is also a debilitating loneliness that comes from isolation, from lack of human presence, from lack of tangible human caring, given and received. Even small gestures of kindness to a teller in a bank, a cashier in a supermarket, or a stranger met casually, can alleviate that kind of loneliness. Even more important is tangible contact with someone close. Another key factor is intimate conversation in which we allow entrance to our vulnerability. In every case the overcoming of escapable loneliness in ourselves and others calls for tangible caring presence.

At the same time, if we are always on our phones visibly, our attention is always from outside in. We are not present to ourselves, we are not at home to ourselves. We are like absentee landlords in our own mind and heart. We are without the solitude that is necessary for wholeness, creativity, and meaningful relationships. Being at home to ourselves, and feeling at home with ourselves, and every dimension of ourselves is one approach to solitude.

It is a matter of time spent quietly by ourselves, in which we allow what is within to rise to the surface of our awareness. If we do so, we may notice the whole range of feelings that are present. While at first this may occasion uneasiness within us, if we attend to these feelings without judgment and with compassion, several things may arise. We may find that beneath our fear or hostility may lie a longing for understanding, love and meaning, and a trust that our hope is not n vain.

Henri Nouwen has described this experience quite eloquently. “To be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping. In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you. …Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when we first come upon this unfamiliar terrain, but slowly and surely we begin to see developing an order and a familiarity which summon our longing to stay home.

“With this new confidence, we recapture our own life afresh from within. Along with this new knowledge of our ‘inner space’ where feelings of love and hate, tenderness and pain, forgiveness and greed are separated, strengthened or reformed, there emerges the mastery of the gentle hand. . .whereby persons once again become master over their own house. …“If we do not shun silence, all this is possible. But it is not easy. Noise from the outside keeps demanding our attention and restlessness from within keeps stirring up our anxiety. … whenever you do come upon this silence, it seems as though you have received a gift, one which is promising in the true sense of the word. The promise of this silence is that new life can be born. It is this silence which is the silence of peace and prayer. . . . In this silence, you lose the feeling of being compulsive and you find yourself a person who can be himself along with other things and other people. . . . In this silence, the false pretences fade away, and you learn to see your life in its proper perspective.”

Once again, it is the uncovering of our own worth, and that of all else, as the deepest reality. This conviction, in turn, makes it possible the ability to live gradually into understanding, compassion, and justice.

Norman King., August 12, 2024

The Sacred Soulful Self

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The core conviction to which I return again and again is the underlying, unerasable sacred worth or value of the person. This worth remains, though tragically we and others fail to see it in ourselves or one another. We then can readily spend our lives in a futile effort to prove a worth we don’t believe, or lash out angrily at others and a world because we don’t feel that worth.

From an early age, others can have a powerful impact, both for good or ill, on our sense of self. Two quotations express this truth profoundly. The first I thought initially was from Rumi, but, while it is in his spirit, it comes from Sarah Durham Wilson. I recently shared it on Facebook.“The way you alchemize a soulless world into a sacred world is by treating everyone as if they are sacred, until the sacred in them remembers.” The other quotation is from a 20th century psychologist. “We are not who we think we are. We are not who others think we are. We are who we think others think we are.”

The second reflects the tendency in our society to be concerned with what we believe others think of us. I once came across a humourous comment that we would worry much less about what people thought of us if we realized how seldom they did. In a book, The Five Top Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware writes that the first regret is this: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Gabor Maté, a favourite author, comments that to speak of courage in this situation is to pass a moral judgment on ourselves. It may well be the case, however, that we were programmed as children to sacrifice our authenticity for the sake of acceptance. At the time, this action felt necessary for our survival. Yet Maté affirms that by compassionate–and not judgmental–self-inquiry, we may retrieve and learn to live more and more from our authentic self.

The core of that authentic self is, I believe, our sacred worth. It is the foundation that cannot be replaced. It is the underlying truth that who we are is enough. Our sacred worth precedes and does not depend on anything we do, and it can never be lost by anything we do or fail to do. Our sacred worth can only be lost sight of, or lost at the deep feeling level, and then it can be betrayed in self and others. As Gregory Baum once wrote, most of the terrible things people do is not because they love themselves too much, but because, at a deeper level, they do not love themselves at all. That is to say, they do not have an underlying sense of self-worth.

Much of my own thought and teaching and writing was a wrestling with a sense of lack of worth, of inadequacy, of not only not doing enough, but not being enough. As Maté has said, it is correlative with a sense of not being lovable or worthy of love. That is also why Thomas Moore’s interpretation of the Narcissus myth seems so powerful. He has written that the core of the story is this: unless a person uncovers an image of themselves as loveable–a death and rebirth experience–they will not be really open to give or receive love.

One line in the famous writing called “Desiderata,” I find very striking. “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” Scientist, Brian Swimme, adds that we are, literally, stardust. All the elements in our physical makeup do indeed come from the stars. As I’ve also noted before, by the very fact that we are breathing, we are part of and so belong in the whole ecosystem of earth, which, in turn, is part of the universe.

As I have mentioned so often, the pathways to uncovering our sacred self are solitude in silence, friendship and intimate conversation, and some form, however simple, of social contribution, from small kindnesses to participation in a social justice movement. These, of course require further elaboration, which we may elaborate in future reflections.

Norman King, July 29, 2024.

Gratitude as Source of Happiness

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Lately, I have been thinking of gratitude and how important it is. Two memories come to mind immediately. One is a comment a late friend made reflecting with a sense of humour on his somewhat rebellious childhood. He said: “I’m grateful that my parents let me live.”

The other recollection was a Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy is complaining to her younger brother Linus that her life is a drag, that she doesn’t get the breaks other people do, that nothing goes right for her. Linus suggests that, at times like this, she should count her blessings. That sets Lucy off on another rant and she finally asks him to name one blessing she has. To which he replies: “Well, for one thing, you have a little brother who loves you.” She then goes wailing into his arms, as he comments shyly aside: “Every now and then I say the right thing.”

In both these instances, the gentle humour brings home the source of gratitude. It is both the fundamental reality of being alive and the caring that makes life worthwhile. I think too that humour that is gentle and not derisive is an expression of hope. To see the humour in something can for example immediately dissipate a mounting anger. I recall once, at a family dinner that was becoming tense, my younger brother, Mike, spoke out with the words: “May I play through?” The tension was immediately dissolved by laughter.

The ancient practice of grace before meals is an expression of gratitude for the food that keeps us alive. It is also gratefulness for the sharing of food with those who share our lives. This again is the caring that gives meaning to our lives. The very word “grace” means gratitude, thankfulness.

Twentieth century author, G. K. Chesterton, writes with thoughtful humour about gratitude “The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful when Santa Claus put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?”

What emerges from his words is that gratitude implies a recognition of gift, and that the basic gift is life itself. Inseparably, it is recognition of the meaningfulness of that gift, which in turn is bound up with our connection with one an other. Chesterton further stresses that gratitude is the source of happiness. If we do not experience our life, our very self, as a gift, but as an accident or even a burden, we tend toward resentment, which readily flows into hostility and even destructive behaviour. Gratitude even further implies that the gift of life is a valuable gift; that we are each a being of sacred worth.

If we reflect on the billions of years of the unfolding of the universe, and the stunning reality, as scientist Brian Swimme brings out, that the stars are our ancestors, we may experience a sense of wonder and awe that we are part of an immense process, and one in which everything is connected.

Yet this awareness and conviction can be readily challenged and is quite precarious. The experience of limitations, faults, and even betrayals, in ourselves and others, can obscure our sense of underlying worth. The problems of society and the reality of climate change can also be very threatening. Having gentle time being with ourselves and being with others–solitude and friendship–are essential to uncovering our intrinsic sacred worth. Concern for ourselves and those nearest to us can also push us toward active concern for our world and our planet.

Gratefulness does not demand an unreal perfection or completeness. This awareness is expressed in the novel by Chaim Potok. A son tells his father that he is troubled by the realization of death. The father replies that something does not have to be forever to be good; it can be precious precisely because it is not forever.

Fragments of the thought of Plato and T. S. Eliot come to mind. Plato spoke of understanding as remembering. I think it can mean that when we come to awareness of basic truths about life–including its gift character–it is like uncovering something we already somehow knew implicitly. And remembering is perhaps less about past facts than coming home to who we truly are, especially our sacred worth. I have long appreciated as well the words of poet, T. S. Eliot. ““We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.

Grateful recognition of the simple things in life–a hot coffee or tea, a warm sun, the smile of a friend, a courtesy from a stranger, a kind word given or received, a loving or humourous memory, a piece of beautiful music, the song of a bird or the chirping of a cricket–all these can bring a quiet joy to our heart, an implicit gratitude for our life and for our home in this universe. It we are open, an underlying gratitude can ease our burdens, alleviate our self judgment, and our judgment of others, and flow into a greater openness of heart, a generosity of spirit, and a more active concern for others and our world.

May you come to experience more fully the sacredness of each of us and the preciousness of the gift of life. And may you respond more fully to the challenge is to care gently for its unfolding within and around you.

Norman King, July 11, 2024

Starting from Our Sacred Self

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“There is a place in us where we have never been wounded.” These words of Meister Eckhart really resonate with me. This is the heart place, the home place, the place of our inmost core, our sacred self. It can also be described as the place of wholeness, which Helen Keller describes as the place of happiness. Tal Ben-Shahar suggests that this wholeness/happiness has five components, indicated by the acronym SPIRE: spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional.

Other expressions of solitude may nudge us gently toward that place within where we have never been wounded. These can include reading thoughtfully something that resonates with us, such as, perhaps, the writings of Richard Rohr or Thich Nhat Hanh. Another avenue is to focus on a word or phrase that expresses the openness or deep longing of our spirit. Variations of this form are called prayer of the heart or centering prayer. Other pathways include becoming attuned to our sensations or feelings, without judgment; focusing on a candle or other object; sitting beside a stream or waterfall and simply listening to the sound.

There are also instances where our breathing becomes conscious. One interesting experience I recall is being at a higher altitude, at Mt. Edith Cavell in the Canadian Rockies and Pike’s Peak in Colorado. In these places, the air is thinner and the breath is initially a little more laboured. I became vividly aware that I was breathing and that it was good to breathe. Accompanying this sensation may be the sense that while we are breathing, we are alive, that it is good to be alive, and that we are grateful for the gift of life. When this reality is experienced deeply, it includes, at least implicitly, an undertone of gratitude–rather than resentment–for our life; a sense of the worth of our life, and that life itself is a wonderful gift.

Listening to beautiful music can also be a pathway to our inner core. I have really appreciated Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber and Nella Fanstasia sung by Sarah Brightman. Both are available on Youtube. The beautiful, repetitive refrains of the music of Taizé may lead us gently into the silence of our own heart. I have often repeated the words of Eva Rockett in an issue of Homemakers magazine, many years ago. She affirms that the beauty of music may reach behind all our defences and touch the core of the condensed self.

Another approach I recently came across is to become aware of our thought patterns. These can influence how we feel and act. The fundamental conviction I have mentioned repeatedly is the sacred worth or value of our very self. At the same time, I have mentioned that we may often speak to ourselves in very harsh, judgmental, and negative terms. These are ways we would never talk to a close friend. When we notice this negative self talk, we might pause, and think: What if instead we stopped and asked ourselves how we would think and how we would speak to ourselves, if we started from the conviction of our intrinsic worth. Instead of moving from the thought that “I am no good because…,” we start from the presumption that “I am of sacred worth, therefore …”

This may be a question of halting a years-old, and possibly unconscious pattern, and introducing a new approach. We may not feel that worth, but we begin to act from that centre. When we truly listen to another, we acknowledge where they are at the time, and how they are presently feeling. We need not agree with them or want them to remain in that space. But in recognizing their present reality, we are affirming their worth as the deeper reality, This is the basis for creative growth. Instead of trying to move them directly to a different place, we try to listen them into their own truth. We try simply to foster the process of their attuning to the place within themselves where they have never been wounded. Perhaps we may begin more and more to listen ourselves into our sacred worth, to become more at home there, and to live more and more from our true home, our heart space.

Perhaps we may conclude with our words from the last reflection. Our journey into the silence and solitude of our heart may pass through the whole spectrum of feelings. Yet beneath these may be uncovered and emerge to awareness our inner core, in its beauty and sacredness. We may then–though not without reversals and new beginnings–gradually live more and more from that centre, and discern and respond to its presence in all we encounter.

May you more and more become attuned to your sacred core, find there your home, and live from there.
And may you then become more fully at home to, and a home for others whose life path crosses your own.
Norman King May 12, 2023

WHOLENESS AND HAPPINESS

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I recently listened to a podcast interview with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, conducted by Mel Robbins. His area of study is positive psychology and happiness. He offers Helen Keller’s view that happiness is wholeness. He holds that happiness is something that ensues a meaningful life. To pursue happiness directly results in failure. He uses an acronym to name the essential ingredients of a happy life: SPIRE. These letters stand for: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional. I thought it might be useful to explore these topics in a few reflections.

The term “whole” itself is related to the words health, heal, hale, holy, and even hello. The Latin word for whole, integer, finds its English counterpart in the word integrity. The opposite is “broken,” which means damaged, divided into parts, or fractured (also from the Latin). This root suggests that happiness involves an integration which holds together in harmony all the various dimensions of our human nature. At the same time, in an article co-authored many years ago, we raised the question of whether one can be a whole person in a broken body. The conclusion was that it was possible, often with the help of intelligently caring and trustworthy others. In other words, wholeness, integrity, authenticity is possible, and is only possible if it is compatible with the inseparable limitations, sorrows, pains, losses, and mistakes found within every human life.

These thoughts lead naturally into the first component of happiness, the spiritual. This element may include religion, but not necessarily. Theologian Diarmid O’Murchu, in Reclaiming Spirituality, suggests that preceding, informing, and going beyond specific religious beliefs, is the human longing for deeper meaning. Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl has also claimed that the longing for meaning is the deepest drive of the human being, a view expressed as well by theologian, Karl Rahner.

This longing for meaning may be understood to comprise three dimensions, a sense of worth, a sense of belonging, and a sense of purpose. The journey toward meaning would seem as a result to involve as well three elements: the practice of solitude and meditation; the experience of friendship and compassion; and the sense that we are part of, and called from within, to give ourselves to something beyond and greater than ourselves.

For today, let’s look at the first element: solitude and meditation. Meister Eckhart, the 13th century mystic has written: “There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor any created thing can touch. … There is a place in the soul where you’ve never been wounded.” The purpose of solitude and meditation is to get to, to return to that space, that Thomas Merton calls “the secret beauty” of our heart. This has been the guiding principle of all my thinking and feeling: that there is a sacred worth and value, to each and every person, and to all that is. It is our home space, our underlying identity. It is never proven, but only discovered, or rather uncovered.

One of the pathways to uncover this place is through breathing meditation. This practice is common to both Eastern and Western traditions. It involves essentially three steps: first simply sit quietly and pay attention to our breathing, its inhale, pause, and exhale, and how it feels. Before long our mind will wander into all kinds of thoughts–the second step. Finally as we notice this distraction, we simply return our attention to the breath. This process will repeat itself continually. Those who write about this practice, such as the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nath Hanh, speak of this practice as allowing us to become more fully present in all our activities. His book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, was written to help social workers be more mindful and so more helpful to those they assisted in their work.

James Finlay has a wonderful comment on this practice: “As we sit, though nothing happens, there is a subtle parting of a curtain.” a clarity and awareness may surface. Wayne Muller echoes a similar thought. He tells of a week long silent retreat, where a deep feeling of sadness emerged. Yet he stayed with the silence, and writes about it.
I could feel a place inside, below all my names, my stories, my injuries, my sadness–a place that lived in my breath. …It had a voice, a way of speaking to me about what was true, what was right. And along with this voice came a presence, an indescribable sense of well-being that reminded me that whatever pain or sorrow I would be given, there was something inside strong enough to bear the weight of it. It would rise to meet whatever I was given. It would teach me what to do.

In the silence of solitude, then, we may become attuned to our own inner voice, the voice that, so to speak, is behind and in our breath. It is the expression of our inmost self, our sacred self, our authentic self, our heart or core self. It is the place where we have never been wounded.

Yet there are places above that inmost self where we have been wounded. There are voices other than the voice of our sacredness. And as we sit in silence, we may first hear these other voices: the voices of criticism, of judgment, of rejection and the like. And there is also the whole spectrum of feelings that each of us experience in some way, including the negative or troubling feelings, such as anger, frustration, bitterness, and the like.

As we have frequently said, the challenge is to recognize these feelings, without either identifying with them or unleashing them indiscriminately. Buddhist teacher, Sharon Salzberg, suggests that we regard these as visitors, but not give them the run of the house. They do belong to us, but they are not who we are most deeply. Anglican author, Morton Kelsey, clarifies the process of recognition and response to these feelings..
Out of silence disturbing emotions often come to the surface which are difficult to control. They can range from vague apprehension to terror and panic, or they may vary from bitterness and indignation to aggressive hatred and rage.. … In the silence one can allow the feelings to arise, disconnected from their ordinary targets in the outer world, and learn to deal with the depth of the psyche directly. … Our feelings and personal responses to the world are taken down, examined, and brought into relationship with the rest of our being and the Centre of Meaning.

In this process, we may be able gradually to uncover the outer, sometimes disturbing layers. Behind these, we may become more and more attuned to and in touch with our core self, our authentic self, our true home. We may then, more and more, learn to live from and return to that soul self. Of course the ambiguities and struggles of life always remain and assert themselves. But they may gradually become visitors and not permanent residents.

The journey into silence may pass through the whole spectrum of feelings. Yet beneath these may be uncovered and emerge to awareness our inner core, in its beauty and sacredness. We may then–though not without reversals and new beginnings–gradually live more and more from that centre, and discern and respond to its presence in all we encounter.

In the silence of your heart, may you more and more uncover and live from your inmost secret self, and experience the happiness of being truly at home to your self and others.

A Few Thoughts on Memory

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A FEW THOUGHTS ON MEMORY
I think that memory is not just a recalling of some past event. It is more fundamentally remembering who we are. In this sense, memory is a tuning in to who we are in our heart, our core. It is a coming home to our own sacred self. Ever moreso, it is a making presence of all those whom we have allowed to enter our heart or who have given us entry to their own heart.

As an example, when we hear a piece of music connected with a particular time, place or person, we not only think of that situation, but we go there. We feel again what we felt then. The earlier experience remains present within us, and the music can bring it back to the surface of our awareness and feeling.

Something similar happens when someone close to us dies or is separated from us. This is someone who has entered our heart, who has become part of who we are. At first, any memories of that person readily make us feel the pain of their loss. As we allow our grief to unfold within us, a subtle change takes place. Some of these memories may now bring joy and gratitude, as exquisite and even humourous experiences arise to the surface of our thought and feeling. The presence and love of that person remains in our heart, and gradually transcends our sorrow at their loss. Who we are, then, includes all those who have entered into our heart, our core, and who have shaped and remain a part of who we are.

I recall the devastating and aching sorrow that came with the death of my younger brother at the age of 26. Yet the unshakable bond that developed between us is one of the most grateful experiences of my life. Since that event of so many years ago, I came to realize that my social involvements have, in large part, been concerned with children. They seem to be an outreach to all the younger brothers of this world who are in some form of pain.

In a favourite essay, “The Logic of Elfland,” G.K. Chesterton tells us that one role of the arts is to remind us of who we are. He first speaks of folk tales as rooted in the experience of wonder, and writes;” These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. … We have all read … the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man … cannot remember who he is. Well, everyone is that person in the story. …We have all forgotten what we really are. … All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awe-filled instant we remember that we forget. …”

In this light, the challenge appears to be to remember who we truly are beneath the accretions of life that have led to forgetfulness, to forgetting our truest and deepest self, and perhaps also those who have remained within our heart..

The story of the Prodigal Son adds another dimension. The younger son requests then and squanders his inherit. He ends up half starved among a group of pigs, an image of utter desolation. The path to his healing begins with memory, a realization that his earlier situation was better. But he does not remember far enough. It is only when the father treats him as a beloved son that he himself recognizes his own deepest reality as a beloved son. When he does so, he comes alive to who he truly is.

I think this story contains two basic insights. First, other individuals and our society may lead us to forget who we are, our true self. Yet another caring person can see and call us to remember our true self. Secondly, the basic truth of who we are is that we are a beloved son or daughter, that is, a being of intrinsic worth, In brief the story is saying that no matter how far we stray, no matter how lost we become, or no matter how dead we are inside, we remain that beloved person, a being of sacred worth.

A similar thought is echoed by Meister Eckhart, a thirteenth century mystic.“There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor any created thing can touch. … There is a place in the soul where you’ve never been wounded.” We may have wandered far from this place. Yet it which always remains and is accessible. Our challenge is to recover or uncover this place as our true home.

In sum, in this approach, memory concerns most fundamentally who we are, and who we are in relationship to others whose lives are most fully intertwined with our own. It may gradually extend to the wider communities and world. It concerns remembering our own and others worth, and gradually living a life based on that sacredness in self, in others, and eventually in all that is. It is, in effect, a life based on love received and given, and one that gradually radiates outwards, in wider and wider circles, to embrace all that is. Such a life is truly memorable and meaningful.

May you come more and more to be in touch with your own inmost core, to recognize its sacred worth and beauty, and to honour that sacredness in yourself and others. May you more and more live according to that worth, in yourself, in others who have entered your heart and remain there, and ever-widening circles to embrace every human being and all that is. And may you thereby fashion a memorable life whose presence radiates through the universe.

Transitions in Life

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Today’s theme is on transitions in life, and the summer is itself a time of transition. It is an invitation to a slower pace, to take time to rest, and to allow for renewal from within. As a result, I will pause for a few summer weeks from this weekly reflection, with the hope of a renewed awareness when they resume. In this light, I wish each of you a wonderful. wondrous, and wonder-filled summer. With immense gratitude for each of you.
Norm

Transitions in Life

I recently listened to a podcast that spoke of liminality. The word comes from a Latin term and means threshold. It is like a door frame where we pass from the outside world into the inside world of our own or someone else’s house. To stand on the threshold of something is to be in a space between two worlds. It has often been described as a state of betwixt and between. It is an in-between state, situation, or experience, in which we are no longer inhabiting our past familiar world and have yet to discover and enter a new world.
Adolescence is one such time, when we are no longer a child, but not yet an adult. Often, we react against any authority in one moment and are looking for an authority to tell us what to do in the next.
I recall an almost comic example in my first teaching experience in Buffalo NY. I asked students to write down an answer to two questions. First, what kind of a course did they not want, and second, what kind of a course did they want. On the first question, they replied overall that they did not want anything shoved down their throats. On the second question, they requested a practical course. I suggested that their first response echoed a familiar adolescent theme: “No one can tell me what to do.” I then said that if that is the case, then I alone am responsible for what I do and its consequences. That realization would lead them to say. “Help! What am I supposed to do?” In other words, the betwixt and between here is an example of the transition between childhood and adulthood. It is the passage between being looked after and having to look after our own lives
Another example is the feast of Hallowe’en, when children dress up often in scary or humourous costumes, and roam the neighbourhood asking for treats. When my son was two and a half years old, Lorraine, his mother, took him, in some seemingly fierce get-up, to the doors of a few neighbours. He pretended to scare them and they pretended to be scared. Then he assured them that it was only Billy. What seemed to be happening was that he was in some way aware of a certain element of fierceness within himself, and yet that was not the real him.
I recall another experience when Lorraine and I were visiting at her uncle’s farm in Radway, Alberta, a little north of Edmonton. In an obscure part of the property, I came across a small cabin, certainly abandoned, but with a few objects scattered inside. One that caught my attention was a woman’s shoe with high laces, a kind not worn for generations. It made me think of how that shoe belonged to someone who lived in a different time and place and culture, of which there is now only this fragmentary evidence.
There are so many transitions–in time and place and culture, as well as in individual lives. Many of these have been marked by rituals, such as marriages and funerals, or even by the changing of the seasons. Others seem more internal, although certainly expressed in outward behaviour.
I recall one instance when I was living in Quebec City, in my early twenties. I had a gradually dawning rather than sudden experience. I felt that everything I had ever learned and been told was not so much either true or untrue but unreal. It was like a jacket that no longer fit. I did not feel that there would necessarily result in a change of ideas or values. But there was a vivid sense that these now had to emerge from within rather than be simply accepted from without. They needed now to come from who I was rather than what I was told. There may be other times in life when such a development may occur. It may be that the convictions that have helped us for years no longer seem to apply.
Spiritual writer, Richard Rohr, provides a helpful illustration. He speaks of the two halves of life. These are not necessarily two chronological ages, but rather two levels of awareness. The first half of life is spent building our sense of identity, importance, and security. This he calls the false self, the image we present to the world and even ourselves.  But inevitably we discover, often through failure or a significant loss, that this image is not all of us. In the second half of life, we discover that it is no longer sufficient to find meaning in being successful or wealthy. We need a deeper source of meaning and purpose. Now aliveness comes from the inside out. The second half of life is about learning to recognize, honor, and love this inner voice.
A basic transition in life is precisely to move from outer acceptability to inner authenticity. As Rohr suggests, it is often occasioned by a sorrow or loss, that reveals its inadequacy, or its being part of an earlier, no longer applicable, stage of life. I recall another image which spoke of shedding shells. Apparently, there is a species of crab that periodically becomes too large for its present shell, and remains vulnerable for a time until its new shell grows. Just as we need to shed our clothing as we grow, so too as we grow inwardly, we need to shed outer ideas, beliefs and attitudes, that are no longer life-giving.
In part, this process involves, I believe,  recognizing the sacredness of being alive, of the very gift of life, the gift of who we are, rather than what we do or what we have. The pathway to this recognition appears to be solitude, friendship, and social involvement, all underlined by and flowing from presence. It is rooted in being and living from our inmost self.
While this growth does evolve from within us, at the same time it involves a deeper awareness of our connection with all that is and with the universe itself. I like the words of Einstein: “The soul given to each of us is moved by the same living spirit that moves the Universe.” I once summarized the thought of Thomas Merton in these words: I am a unique word uttered with meaning and love from the heart of the universe.
May your life more and more unfold in terms of who you truly are, with gratitude for the gift of yourself and your life, and generosity for all.
Norman King, June 26, 2023