My Pilgrim Mind

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The Past Returns

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The clashes in Charlottesville and Boston disturb me. My breath is shallow; my muscles tense. Memories of growing up in Atlanta with segregated buses, lunch counters, and restrooms flow into my day, and join memories of living in Chicago during the race riots and the 1968 Democratic Convention. I was a driver on the Dan Ryan Expressway when warnings were posted that rocks and bricks were being thrown off the overhead bridges. Protests over Vietnam broke out and shooting of Kent State students occurred. I moved to Madison, WI in time for the explosion of the math building, National Guard staking out university and state buildings, and the teargasing of students. This list is overwhelming without mentioning the atmosphere of the Cold War, Space flight, Cuban Crisis, Watergate and more.

What happened to my spiritual website? The above events don’t fit. Or do they?

Pause. Breathe. On my left, a floor-to-ceiling window at McDonald’s lets in sunshine, a large diet coke leaves rings on the table close to my pen and paper. I am safe. I take time to examine the past hoping for personal peace with the present.

I lived through those events physically unharmed. Shaking my head in disbelief, I recall one afternoon as I drove down University Ave. in Madison. The four-lane was deserted. The total emptiness was uncomfortable. At home I turned on the news. That afternoon the National Guard had tear-gassed students only a block from my path. Yet I was safe. This type of occurrence affirms the presence of God in my life.

Seeing the recent angry crowds, my brain froze. I forgot how often God has protected me. I need to pause and breathe. I need to say a pray, maybe just “Help”. Muscles relax. Calmness covers me. “Thanks, God.” I trust my answers will come.

Two Halves of Life

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“…there are at least two major tasks to human life. The first task is to build a strong ‘container’ or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.” (Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, p.xiii)

          I image my life in the form of a basket. This basket exhibits the goals of my life: identity, accomplishments, status, and separateness from others. For many decades I’ve woven my actions and beliefs into it. The base is my birth potential (intelligence, coloring, athletic ability, etc.). The sides, made up of staves, represent the influences in my life (parents and relatives, education, religion or culture, hobbies, jobs, mates, and environment). In and out, around the staves, I wove my choices. Over time these staves have become twisted, bent, broken, squeezed, or pushed out of alignment. The pattern of my basket is irregular.

         That weaving now nears the top. As I gaze at my basket, I realize it is empty. How will I fill it? My stomach clutches. The center has nothing to hold on to. I will no longer have the support of the staves. Will I adventure into this openness or cling to the staves, leaving the center empty until I die? Working on the weaving and repairing the staves would be much easier than free floating in the emptiness. Despair announces its presence in thoughts of death. Where was my life going? I have a home. My career is over; I’m retired. I’m finished?

         Reading Rohr’s book, I realize my life isn’t over. Though frightening, I am releasing my grip on basket sides, one finger at a time and venturing into open space, where the second half of my life begins. There I’ll find true spirituality.

 

 

A Divided Life

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Do you live a divided life?

Balancing job, home, family, and hobbies is one form of division.

The division I’m referring to is between material and spiritual. There was no room for the spiritual in my life. Of course, when I thought of spiritual, I thought religion. Today I recognize a difference.

My materialistic life equaled excavating a gravel pit. My focus was on protecting myself from the stones and equipment. My life seemed empty and meaningless.

Once I began my journey through therapy and Twelve Step groups, I discovered a Spirit, which was always present. I was just incapable of contacting It. Years later my focus changed. I could look up and SEE. At dawn the western pit wall shimmered in clear icy light. At evening, the eastern rocks held a rosy hue, a gift of the setting sun.

My eyes followed the spiral pit path past solid and loose stone displaying shades of gray, yellow and brown. A small buttery bloom nestled on the road’s edge. I climbed until I stood over it, then plucked it and observed it closely. Hundreds maybe thousands of thin golden petals spread in layers from the center. Each petal had a central vein reaching out to a v-shaped brown-edged notch. The blossom’s middle held a myriad of stamen like lemon lollypops. The flower was awesome. My view of a dandelion would never be the same. I now refer to a dandelion infested lawn as “happy grass”.

A gravel pit wasn’t where I really discovered the exquisiteness of a dandelion. My point is the lesson. When spirituality touches every aspect of daily, personal, and business life, our existence is deeply enriched.