“…everyone has a life that is different from the ‘I’ of daily consciousness, a life that is trying to live through the ‘I’ who is its vessel. …there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my true self.” —Parker Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak
Parker Palmer’s book is difficult for me to take in at times. Each line resonates deeply leaving me wanting to highlight everything I’m reading. The power and profundity stem, I think, from the modesty inherent in Palmer’s proposal…rather than selling himself as the expert, he merely plays the role of servant guide giving the reader permission to delve into the stream of the true self flowing free below the frozen surface of the public “I”.
I find Palmer’s lines above very provocative. It moves me to look beyond the public persona and move deeper into myself. Thomas Merton speaks to the same idea with the metaphors of a fire or a ship: “We are warmed by a fire, not by the smoke of a fire. We are carried over the sea by a ship, not by the wake of a ship. So too, what we are is to be sought in the invisible depths of our own being, not in our outward reflection in our own acts. We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul which is the principle of all our acts.” —Thomas Merton, from No Man is an Island
Often of late, I have engaged in conversations with people (mostly men) who are struggling deeply with issues concerning vocation. So much of our identity is wrapped up in our vocation and our performance in that vocation. Much of my current struggle with my identity is centered on the public “I”…the role, vocation, and social face of my life. But that revolves around job, career, resume’, public perception and performance. It is much more difficult for me to articulate what is happening in the stream of my self flowing below that sheet of ice.
The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek. —Parker Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak
I guess what I’m saying is that I am entering the woods. Quietly. I’m going to find a tree and sit down for a while…
Brian McLaren was featured in an interesting interview on the FERMI Project podcast discussing his new book, Finding Our Way: The Return of the Ancient Practices. I picked up a copy last week but haven’t finished it yet. At the beginning of chapter one, he tells about interviewing Peter Senge at a pastor’s conference. McLaren opened the interview by acknowledging for Senge that the audience of pastors was probably different than his usual gatherings of business leaders. Senge replied,
“Well, Brian, you’re right. I don’t normally speak to pastors. Actually, I was thinking about that very question yesterday when I was in a large bookstore. I asked the bookstore manager what the most popular books are these days. Most popular, he said, were books about how to get rich in the new information economy, which didn’t surprise me. …Second most popular, the manager said were books about spirituality, and in particular, books about Buddhism. And so when I thought about speaking to five hundred Christian pastors today, I thought I’d begin by asking you all a question: why are books on Buddhism so popular, and not books on Christianity?” (McLaren, Finding Our Way, p.3)
McLaren returned the question to Senge, “How would you answer that question?” Senge’s answer was, I believe, profound and very intriguing:
“I think it’s because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.”
This was a wonderful statement for me personally because it speaks very pointedly to my own faith context at this particular time of my life. (I alluded to this in a blog post a couple of months ago). I have found my received Christianity-as-belief-system increasingly problematic as I move through my life. The fact that this belief system began 44 years ago as an extremely fundamentalist and literal form of Christianity has had much to do with my discontent. It simply could not bear the weight of life and circumstances and I found I could no longer ignore the empirical evidence of life lived outside the bubble of Christendom. And yet, I couldn’t leave “the church” or faith or Jesus.
Several weeks ago, I attended a 5 Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. To be perfectly honest, I began the experience extremely cynical and with very low expectations. I left that experience with a profound new understanding of my own faith journey and of my practice of faith from that point forward. Specifically, my new understanding revolves around this tension between practice and system of belief. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this.
so here we are in the field... 