In his book Markings, Dag Hammarskjold wrote: “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 a recent interfaith Zoom meeting, a presentation was given by Dr. Darren Kew, Dean of , Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. Among other things, he stressed that the starting place for peacebuilding is our own internal journey. This is the never finished process of getting in touch with our inner self. A part of this process is dealing with our own inner pain, wounds, and conflicts. We are then able to come to a deeper understanding of others and empathy for them.
Dr. Kew went on to say that the next step is storytelling. This is a process in which we engage in dialogue with others. This is not, at first, a matter of discussing principles and practices, similarities and differences. It is rather an exercise in storytelling, in which we unfold something of our own inner journey. Part of this journey might be from a closed mind to an open heart, from dogmatism to appreciation, from proselytizing to listening. Dr. Kew tells of two people of differing religions who moved from l hatred to mutual friendship by first dealing with their owner inner reality and them sharing that journey in their personal story.
The poet, Mary Oliver, expresses a similar approach:“Instructions for living a life./Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” In this regard, our experience to explore includes an openness to the worlds around us from the beauty of a flower opening to the ferocity of a storm. And our own inner experiences echoes this wide range found in nature. We experience all the feelings, from joy and love to fear and hostility. It is essential to recognize these, but not necessarily express them outwardly.
The challenge here, it seems, is to be in touch with our deepest inner experience. This is described as a journey, because it is a voyage of discovery. We are often largely unknown to ourselves, as when we ask ourselves, “Why did I do that?” Or we might fall into a similar behavioural trap and utter, “Oh no, not again, the same old story.” Folk tales, such as Snow White and Hansel and Gretel; express this part of the journey as going through a dark forest. Sleeping Beauty talks of the “prickly” or negative aspects by saying that who we most deeply are may be hidden been a hedge of thorns.
What all these stories suggest is that, while they depict an outer journey, they are really portraying an inner journey. Joseph Campbell writes that the journey of the hero or heroine, while told in terms of outer geography, is really an effort to name our inner geography.
One aspect of this process is that images alone can express a more than literal or even factual; truth. They can point to what is to some extent beyond words. My favourite example is from the Shakespearean play, King Lear. After a series of traumatic events, he looks forward to spending his last days with the daughter, whom he finally realizes, is the one who truly loved him. But first he expresses the pain he has felt. He does not simply state that he has been deeply hurt, but proclaims: “But I am bound upon a wheel of fire that mine own tears do scald like molten lead.” While not a literal statement, it conveys vividly and forcefully.,his burden of sorrow. In a way that makes us feel it and enriches our understanding.
What is also striking about all these stories is that they include or are followed by a reaching out. Yet this reaching out is not an inflicting of our own unfaced, not struggled with, unresolved or not transcended neediness, insecurity, pain, fear, or hostility. Rather the outreach then proceeds from inmost true self, from our authentic presence, from our developed gifts. They are an outreach that not a disguised taking, but as giving. It flows not from our emptiness, but from our fulness
Spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, asserts that the outer journey into compassion and social justice is essential, but it cannot be separated from the corresponding inner journey. He writes: “What is the relation of this [contemplation] to action? Simply this. One who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his or her own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He or she will communicate to them, nothing but the contagion of their own obsessions, their aggressiveness, their ego-centred ambitions, their delusions about ends and means, their doctrinaire prejudices and ideas.”
More succinctly, a more recent spiritual writer, Richard Rohr, insists that “suffering that is not transformed is transmitted.”
We might say that the ultimate gift we have to the people and world around us is the gift of who we are, of our authentic self, our real person , not of the image fashioned out of others reaction to us or their plan for us. It is not the imposition of a role foisted on us, It is not the action of an impersonator, but the expression of who we are, in dialogue with others and our world.
It then flows into the particular gifts that we have and have developed. .These indicate what we have to offer. We can then ask where and to whom do I offer these gifts. We may ask as well what is most needed in our society today and what do I have to offer that situation. Ecologian Thomas Berry’s response was that much is needed in our threatened and fragile world, all the gifts of everyone. His suggestion is: “Do what you love and become competent.”
May you all continue on your inner journey, discover and live your true story, and share your gifts in a world that is in profound need of them.
