But what
happens when we have done all the right things for the right reasons and we are
still miserable? What happens when the life we are living is someone else’s
life? James Hollis says …”when certain principles, energies, values are denied,
or have been pushed to exhaustion, they cease to function as sources of
vitality.” What happens when we offer up our engagement with the mystery that
is life for security? Upon deeper analysis of the inner malaise we
discover this misery that we are disowning appears now as an uprising. Now, the
security all these values and actions represent seem to bring outrage to the
soul rather than peace. They manifest symptoms of depression, unruly discordant
envy and jealousy. We have what we wanted & it still feels like
loss & absence. How could this be?
What we
have become in our jobs, our marriages, our faith communities, our creative
enclaves, is now frequently the obstacle to us being who we were called to be.
Most likely someone else must point out to us that we have chosen security over
the mystery. Upon a deeper pondering I now begin to realize the true price of
the success or approval I had sought for so long & so diligently. The
soul is making demands and I have lost my nerve. My failure to grow is due to
excessive attachments to the very things that are killing me. Blind acceptance
& a satiated sense of being the rewards of my past used to be enough. I
could bath in my projected wins, things conquered, accolades received, dreams
partially met. But the journey, the life, now is on hold. I have stopped
longing for the wonder & revelation. I am living life in reverse.
The
imagination plays such a powerful role in this encounter with the soul’s
enigmatic nature. Boredom is the pathology of the depressed or the
unimaginative. I have discovered a few things about how my imagination drives
this forward motion of the soul. Security over growth always is accompanied
with a deep sense of inner smallness. Now my curiosity and sense of
exploration, so vital to my experience of longing, begins to whither and wane.
Why learn, why experience the new, why risk anything at all? But the soul is in
exile & it cries out to reengage the journey.
The
journey metaphor has played a primary narrative role in my life. Calling as
well implies travel and travel implies journey. To hear & to listen is
to follow the call and to follow the call is to live one’s life as if it were
their own.
Hollis
goes on to say, “We all set off expecting the achievement of our goals to bring
long lasting satisfaction. It is not the goals that are unworthy, as such, but
that they so often become tempting stopping places for the soul, cul-de-sacs
where we decline the invitation to trade still more mystery for security.”
Apparently something more is being ask of us.
In my brief
lifetime I have often made some of life’s goals destinations. But the soul will
not consider mystery for safekeeping or refuge. The soul does not consider this
an even trade. The invitation, the summons of my soul beckons louder and louder
as I turn away from its call. Rilke said that our task in life is to be
defeated by even larger things. Now, in the second half of life’s journey, I am
emptied of some of the hubris of my youthful ego’s pretense. Knowing now that
this beckoning towards enlargement will undoubtedly bring some degree of
failure and loss, I count the costs differently, & I weigh my resolve
with great care & stewardship. But when I take my lead from the
familiar postures of soul, my companions of lethargy and fear sound obsessed
with security & are no longer able to feed the soul’s deepest longings.
I am learning that uncertainty is still my closest companion, still my most
reliable & trustworthy muse, and still the “divine discomforter” needed
to wake me up to hear the call, sing the song, light the fire, & pour
my very being out to heighten the blaze. A mystery driven life is a beautiful
incendiary - a fire starter to burn away the dross & light the dim lit
path my soul deems part of the journey.
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