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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: The Journey

Failure

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…the genius of the Gospel is that it incorporates failure into a new definition of spiritual success. This is why Jesus says that prostitutes and tax collectors are getting into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and religious elders (see Matthew 21:31).

Our success-driven culture scorns failure, powerlessness, and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we have missed the point of the Gospel. Nonviolence, weakness, and simplicity are also part of the American shadow self. We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and the world. We reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead, and we elect leaders who falsely promise us the same.

 

One of the great surprises on the human journey is that we come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing our own contradictions, and making friends with our own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably superficial and uninteresting. We tend to endure them more than appreciate them because they have little to communicate and show little curiosity. Shadow work is what I call “falling upward.” Lady Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) put it best of all: “First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall. And both are the mercy of God!” [2] God hid holiness quite well: the proud will never recognize it, and the humble will fall into it every day—not even realizing it is holiness.


Richard Rohr 

The Progeny Parable

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The wedding was stunning in every way, the bride a fantasy princess, the groom Sir Galahad personified. Their only rival for attention were spectacular vistas framing the ceremony. Family and friends gathered to witness and celebrate. A spectacular honeymoon was almost anti-climactic.

Promising careers… white picket fences … beautiful people.. life is good, almost perfect … almost.

Months and years pass, life is good, almost perfect…almost. 

Empty nursery, dreams of progeny unfulfilled. Doubts and questions, Why? Who? 

God’s will?  Surely not.

Google it. No stone unturned. Calendars, thermometers, timing is everything. Hurry home, now is the time. Doctors, meds. Try harder!

Surely it is God’s will.

Resignation. It is not to be. 

Foster parenting. Hearts aching. Choice, not chance.

We’ve done it. Nursery songs ..diapers.. Mama…Dada

Life is almost perfect..almost. No matter. Thank you God.

Life is good.. love abounds. No calendars…no thermometers, no demands.

Could it be? Yes! How could it be? 

Did we just get out of the way? 

Surely it’s God’s will. 

 

A Good Life

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Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.

 Case 218

How’s this for the good life? You’re rich, and you made the dough yourself. You’re well into your 80s, and have spent hardly a day in the hospital. Your wife had a cancer scare, but she’s recovered and by your side, just as she’s been for more than 60 years. Asked to rate the marriage on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 is perfectly miserable and 9 is perfectly happy, you circle the highest number. You’ve got two good kids, grandkids too. A survey asks you: “If you had your life to live over again, what problem, if any, would you have sought help for and to whom would you have gone?” “Probably I am fooling myself,” you write, “but I don’t think I would want to change anything.” If only we could take what you’ve done, reduce it to a set of rules, and apply it systematically.

 Right?

Small Moments

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As I have thought about spiritual milestones, I have concluded that such occasions are not always big, dramatic events. They may very well seem insignificant but as time passes their impact on our life becomes more and more apparent. There is one such occasion that comes to my mind.

It was in the 1970’s during a visit to Nashville that I was invited by a friend to attend Wednesday evening church. His church was not a typical Church of Christ but that was no deterrent. It was a time of questions and curiosity in my life. I was expecting a class experience that would satisfy my curiosity and questions. What happened was completely foreign to my church experience.

As the congregation gathered, the minister asked all the men come with him and the women were directed to another place. We followed him out of the church building to a building near by. We were ushered into a room that accommodated us but the quarters were close. I didn’t know anyone except my friend and had no idea what to expect. It certainly wasn’t a usual classroom setting. We were seated on the floor. The lighting was dim.

The leader of the session began to talk and share his relationship with Jesus. He encouraged others to reflect on their own experiences and thoughts about their relationship with Jesus. Men began to speak up and talk about their lives in ways that I had not experienced. There was emotion and passion, confession and repentance, prayers and tears. I was immersed in the moment. I was touched deeply, but I did not speak out.

That experience would seem inconsequential to many Christians in this day and time. For me, it was a small moment that had a lasting impact. It was like a first romantic kiss … awkward, a little repulsive, but oh so delicious … a taste that would linger …a glimpse of something mysterious and wonderful. It was discovery and the promise of adventure. I have remembered that event throughout the years and in that small moment; my eyes and heart were opened to wonderful possibilities of fellowship with Jesus and others who believe him. From then on, I could not be satisfied with less.

Aug. 31st, 2006