|
 |
Sunday, June 14, 2009 |
===========================================================
THE CENTER FOR THIRD AGE NEWSLETTER – JUNE 2009
1. FATHER WILLIAM’S MONTHLY MUSINGS
2. INTRODUCTION TO “ILLUSIONS”
3. HERON DANCE – TO LIVE LIFE GUIDED BY LOVE
4. JUNG, INDIVIDUATION & THIRD AGE
5. OLD AGE: JOURNEY INTO SIMPLICITY
6. ELSA & FRED
7. THIS MONTH'S LINKS
===========================================================
THIS MONTH’S QUOTE – ROBERT BROWNING
“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made...”
===========================================================
1. FATHER WILLIAM’S MONTHLY MUSINGS
June Greetings, Good Friends...
I know, I know. This newsletter is very late this month. I have excuses like traveling back from New Zealand, attending and over-partying at daughter Kate’s Master’s graduation, selling and moving from our condo and setting up a home to welcome lovely Donna into. I am not good at most of these and would like to whine longer, but I doubt you’ll buy much more. So onto what you may be interested in...
Having worked on my personal “Third Age Transformation” for the last eight years, I’ve come to accept my journey from Second Age to Third lies in recognizing, embracing and living a particular paradox. This entails developing a strong and whole ego so I can then reduce its role in my life. The details follow.
A major work of our Second Age is to complete a healthy development of the ego, that is, to have sufficient life success to feel we’ve done and been “enough” on whichever dimensions we have made important to ourselves. In my case, these included feeling appreciated as personally attractive and strong, feeling valued for my intelligence and wit, and feeling a part of long and loving relationships. Note the over-emphasis on “feeling” here. This is because it is what the ego “feels” or believes that creates its reality – and its sense of success.
You might want to take a moment to acknowledge the dimensions that are important to your ego, even if they’re unattractive to you. I certainly had trouble owning my enormous needs for attention and applause, but, once I did, I could go after what I wanted much more directly.
I remember when this happened for me. I was teaching high school English, and I wanted the kids to think I was a fantastic teacher. Before I could admit this to myself, I was unconsciously over-rewarding the ones who flattered me and subtly punishing the ones who criticized. One day it hit me, and I said to the students, “You know what I really want? As each class ends, I want you all to rise to your feet applauding and saying things like, ‘Oh, thank you, Mr. Idol, you’ve changed my life!’” Now owning up didn’t make me stop wanting this, but, by turning it into a public joke, I gained a much greater degree of conscious choice about how much I’d let it manipulate me. And my admission gave us all permission for greater personal honesty.
So in Second Age my ego insisted on being “A Big Deal.” Fortunately, I realized I could help guide its development by being aware of what it cried out for and helping it find healthy ways to get what it needed. As I turned 60, my ego had evolved enough, thank heaven, to let me open to the possibilities of Third Age.
But opening to possibilities is one thing; following the path of those possibilities is quite another and has taken old FW another eight years.
That’s because my version of evolving into Third Age requires moving from my ego’s “wanting to be recognized as so very, very special” to my Self’s “relaxing into full participation in my total ordinariness.” As you might guess, my ego is having some problems with this.
The Catch-22 is, of course, that the ego resists its relegation from being the “Big Deal Self” to only an agent serving the real Self. The strength of this resistance is directly proportionate to how much of ourselves we’ve put into “amounting to something” as teacher, consultant or ex-President. I certainly put a lot of myself into the many roles I played, and this is why my evolution from ego-identity to Self-identity is taking so long.
Recently I’ve noticed how many levels there are to this journey, and like peeling back the layers of an onion, there are often tears involved. I’m realizing any illusion of superiority occurring in any form is another grasping attempt by my ego to hold on to what it believes it had before. This nonsense includes feeling superior because I’ve become more “ordinary” or because...
“The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made...”
Comparisons, especially “best’s,” are superiority’s bread and butter – take them all with a grain of salt, a sense of humor and a big dose of compassion for your struggling ego.
You’ll find ways to think about all this in Richard Bach’s delightful “Introduction to Illusions” (#2), Rod MacIver’s recent issue of Heron Dance (#3)and an adaptation of Robert Gray’s “Ericksonian Approaches to the Ego-Self Axis” (#4). Each offers a different perspective on what letting go and relaxing into the mundane makes possible. Of course, the Oneness turns out to be both sublime and mundane (since Oneness = oneness) - it takes a great deal of spaciousness to accept such a reversal of Second Age reality...
Happy Early Summer, Father William
PS: As you travel this path to your true Self, it helps to remember these words from “Desiderata”:
“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should...”
For more of Father William:
http://www.fatherwilliam.org/
===========================================================
2. INTRODUCTION TO “ILLUSIONS”
A BOOK BY RICHARD BACH
There was a master come unto the earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne.
The Master learned of this world in the public schools of Indiana, and as he grew, in his trade as a mechanic of automobiles.
But the Master had learnings from other lands and other schools, from other lives that he'd lived. He remembered these, and remembering became wise and strong, so that others saw his strength and came to him for counsel.
The Master believed that he had power to help himself and all mankind, and as he believed so it was for him, so that others saw his power and came to him to be healed of their troubles and their many diseases.
The Master believed that it is well for any man to think upon himself as a son of God, and as he believed, so it was, and the shops and garages where he worked became crowded and jammed with those who sought his learning and his touch; and the streets outside with those who longed only that the shadow of his passing might fall upon them, and change their lives.
It came to pass, because of the crowds, that the several foremen and shop managers bid the Master leave his tools and go his way, for so tightly was he thronged that neither he nor other mechanics had room to work upon the automobiles.
So it was that he went into the countryside, and people following begin to call him Messiah, and worker of miracles; and as they believed, it was so.
If a storm passed as he spoke, not a rain drop touched a listener’s head; and the last of the multitude heard his words as clearly as the first, no matter lightning nor thunder in the sky about. And always he spoke to them in parables.
And he said unto them, "Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and to sickness, to riches and to poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another."
A mill-man spoke and said, "Easy words for you, Master, for you are guided as we are not, and need not toil as we toil. A man has to work for his living in this world."
The Master answered and said, "Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.
"The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
"Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.
"But one creature said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.'
"The other creatures laughed and said,' Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!'
"But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
"Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
"And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger cried,' See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!'
"And the one carried in the current said,' I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.'
"But they cried the more,' Savior!' all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior."
And it came to pass when he saw that the multitude thronged him the more day on day, tighter and closer and fiercer than ever they had, when he saw that they pressed them to heal them without rest, and feed them always with his miracles, to learn for them and to live their lives, he went alone that day on to a hilltop apart, and there he prayed.
And he said in his heart, Infinite Radiant Is, if it be they will, let this cup pass from me, let me lay aside this impossible task. I cannot live the life of one other soul, yet ten thousand cry to me for life. I'm sorry I allowed it all to happen. If it be thy will, let me go back to my engines and my tools and let me lived as other men.
And a voice spoke to him on the hilltop, a voice neither male nor female, loud nor soft, a voice infinitely kind. And the voice said unto him, "Not my will, but thine be done, for what is thy will is mine for thee. Go thy way as other men, and be thou happy on the earth."
And hearing, the Master was glad, and gave thanks and came down from the hilltop humming a little mechanic’s song. And when the throng pressed him with its woes, beseeching him to heal for it and learn for it and feed it nonstop from his understanding and entertain it with his wonders, he smiled upon the multitude and said pleasantly unto them, "I quit."
For a moment the multitude was stricken dumb with astonishment.
And he said unto them, "If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he was told?"
"Of course, Master!" cried the many. "It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!"
"No matter what those tortures, nor how difficult the task?"
"Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked," said they.
"And what would you do," the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face and said,' I command that you be happy in the world, as long as you live.' What would you do then?"
And the multitude was silent, not a voice not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood.
And the Master said unto the silence, "In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path, as you please."
And he went his way through the crowds and left them, and he returned to the everyday world of men and machines.
===========================================================
3. HERON DANCE – TO LIVE LIFE GUIDED BY LOVE
BY RODERICK MACIVER, APRIL 30, 2009
At least two different warblers have arrived over the last week or so in the Adirondack woods: the Chestnut-sided (listen here) and Magnolia Warblers (listen here). Almost all of the birds you hear singing are male but there are at least three exceptions: Cardinals, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Orioles. As they have for about 180 million years, black fly larvae will emerge as adults as soon as the recently cool weather warms — which is anticipated later this week.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to live life guided by love. I’ve got a long, long way to go but every day I’m trying to get a little further down the path. Love is a simple and obviously profound word, and in part that’s why I like it. I need something I can boil right down because I fall so easily off track.
I remember an inmate who had been in prison a very long time saying in an interview — it may even been one of the inmate interviews I did in the early days of Heron Dance — that “I love you” is one phrase we humans never tire of hearing. An Op-Ed article in the New York Times last week, by David Brooks, described a 72-year study of 268 men who attended Harvard College. They were gifted, affluent and apparently well-adjusted. It is a fascinating article (visit here to view), and the conclusion of the man who oversaw the work for 42 years was that “Love is happiness. Full stop.” The degree of happiness in a person’s life depends on the quality of human relationships.
Yes, I agree, but there is more to it than just human relationships. The degree of love we are able to pour into a work — for instance, a creative work — or even a place — for instance, a wild place or a community — affects the quality of our lives. Pouring love into a home even has an expansive effect: — creating a home of peace and beauty, a simple home, a home where others — strangers, friends and family — feel comfortable and at peace, contributes to the quality of a human life.
To build a life around love requires thought and care. You need to be rested. You can’t fill yourself with love when you are overtired and grouchy. You need to live a low stress life, a life with a margin in reserve — a financial margin, an energy margin. You need to put understanding and acceptance ahead of winning conflicts or prevailing in disputes. A life built around love probably involves a fair amount of surrender over relatively minor issues.
You also need to minimize the number of moving parts. When I’m going in lots of different directions or responsible for lots of different projects, I can’t find love inside myself and can’t offer it to others or even to my work. All of these things have some relationship with one’s friendship with oneself and, perhaps, as a part of that, a relationship to time in reflection and quiet meditation.
The Op-Ed piece also contains these observations: “A third of the men would suffer at least one bout of mental illness. Alcoholism would be a running plague. The most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success.” Mundane? We can’t be what we’re not. I’m not mundane and don’t want to be, but I have a very happy life. I love adventure, challenge, and learning. I’m fascinated by life. But balance is another thing. I often struggle for balance. I’m prone to extremes. When I’m living a balanced life — work and play, physical exercise and rest, the paddle down a wild river and then the return home to a quiet evening — I’m most able to find the love inside myself and offer it to the world.
In celebration of the Great Dance of Life,
http://www.herondance.org/A-Pause-for-Beauty-C65_category.aspx
===========================================================
4. JUNG, INDIVIDUATION & THIRD AGE
Adapted from “Ericksonian Approaches to the Ego-Self Axis” presented by Robert D. Gray at St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY. June 5,1997.
Jungian theory suggests there exists in each individual a natural direction of personal development. Wilson Van Dusen called this our “Natural Depths.” Every life, from the moment it is born, seeks this potential and is naturally drawn to it. It represents the full realization of our genetic, intellectual, and spiritual potential. Jung called this path Individuation.
WE USE THE FIRST PART OF LIFE TO DEVELOP THE EGO
Typically, the time from birth to adulthood is developmentally aimed at the production of a stable ego, that is, a relatively consistent representation of the Self and the focus for consciousness. Until its stabilization in early adulthood, the ego is driven and drawn, molded and founded in unconscious process.
MATURITY BEGINS OUR PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION & EGO-SELF SEPARATION
With maturity, each person begins the move towards individuation in which the projections of unconscious process (and with them the possibility of personal growth) are brought increasingly under conscious control. What had been unconscious is now brought into the realm of consciousness and the individual is led to fulfill the potential that lay dormant in the primitive psyche. This is the path of individuation in which the individual becomes increasingly conscious of his own potential and the directions it implies.
If we truly mature, in later Second Age the ego begins to recognize it is not the Self (who we are at the highest and deepest levels) and accepts its role as an agent working for the Self to manage our interactions with the world.
IN THIRD AGE WE FULLY RECOGNIZE & REALIZE OUR TRUE SELF
Classical Jungian psychology held that individuation was the course laid out for the latter part of life. If we can relax into our Third Age, we find there is accessible to each of us a path which represents the highest good and the fullest realization of our potential – a road of maximum benefit for which all of our personal biology yearns and which, when found, moves life into high gear. It is the “Bliss” referred to by Joseph Campbell in the oft repeated, and little understood maxim "Follow your bliss." When we open to and follow our personal paths of individuation, our unique Natural Depths come into full bloom, and we experience life in ways never before possible!
===========================================================
7:53:15 AM 
|
|
|
Saturday, April 25, 2009 |
Peace Is an Incremental Process
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009
Subject: RE An Insight into My Enjoying Email
A very good point in your first paragraph about getting into real participation (RIP) by those other means. Also, I like the RIP shorthand additionally since it becomes a kind of code for our "own" communicado!
Yes, I think you have seized upon the meaning of "the demarcated world outside" very well. After all, not every kind of participation is positive--much of what a person finds himself engaged in is actually counterproductive, and sometimes it takes decades of such practices before we find out that an entirely DIFFERENT practice is called for in our lives! Incidentally, the latter is where I think seniors can discover their true "raison d’être."
After just completing the note to you about one's "raison d’être" I got to thinking of how a woman friend of mine here in Asheville, who had many long years of conducting "meaningful" searches, suddenly discovered herself conducting another one of those sessions, and said to herself, "What am I doing here, this is getting me nowhere?" She quit those efforts at once and withdrew from further "participation" until she had thoroughly examined all those years of effort, become a self-styled "hermit," and dropped most of her long established "friends." Fortunately, she and I are still friends, and few others understand what she did, but it is fascinating how that sudden "dawn" can descend on a person, isn't it?
From: Father William
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009
Subject: “Freedom is an incremental process”
My “sudden dawn” is not so sudden. One of the thoughts in “The Shack” that struck me was “Freedom is an incremental process” which is how I’m experiencing my continuing awakening to RIP (much like the “three steps forward, two back” notion). This does seem to by my "raison d’être" now. It seems the best choices I make have to do with disengaging from counter-productive interactions...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Subject: RE: “Freedom is an incremental process”
Delightful. Many dawns are shadowings.
From: Father William
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2009
Subject: A New Baseline of Peace & Love
“Shadowings” are a very apt description for my many “dawns.” I am again struck by how easily my sense of peace and love in and for the world can come and go. The difference now is that peace, instead of disturbance, has become the baseline – the home – to which I consistently return. While sometimes seeming a small and subtle shift, this sense of love’s continuity is, in fact, a great step forward for me…
12:27:48 PM
|
|
Slipping In & Out of the Jet Stream
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009
Subject: RE: Slipping In & Out of the Jet Stream--But, how slippery is it?
Interaction is one of those things that are cumulative, thus guaranteeing you'll have a large block to deal with at a time! The trouble is that if you are in a jet stream there is no place to park such a block. So, you "jet out of here." Somewhat comparable to a cocktail party, you have to escape into the demarcated world outside.
From: Father William
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009
Subject: A Little More, Please
I’m not sure of all you mean here - please say more about what you mean by “a large block” and “the demarcated world outside”...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009
Subject: RE: A Little More, Please
Well, I guess I'm suggesting that "interaction" is a large block in the sense that it's an all involving sort of thing to have to gulp down all at once--at least sometimes, especially when there are a bunch of persons around you who are trying to engage you. At such moments there is little opportunity to withdraw into an introspective mode, and so the individual is forced to go along with something which may not concur with his actual sense of the situation. I believe that when that happens the person does not relax into participation in a desirable way. Under those circumstances I would want to get out of such artificial "interaction" by getting away from it as soon as possible.
From: Father William
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009
Subject: An Insight into My Enjoying Email
This makes perfect sense to me, Ed – thank you. And as a person so easily engaged, especially in a teaching sense, I do get very caught up in things “which may not concur with [my] actual sense of the situation.” It now occurs this is why I am so enjoying my email correspondence, newsletters and recorded radio shows – I am able to RIP (I like this as a short hand for our “relaxing into participation”) by getting away from interaction at any time.
I am still intrigued by your term “the demarcated world outside” and don’t feel I fully understand it – are you meaning a world with protective boundaries that allows RIP to occur much more easily?
12:26:46 PM
|
|
A World with Much Tenderness & Sensitivity
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2009
Subject: RE: "The Shack" Makes Marketing Sense
I finished the book. I think it does give quite a bit of entre to another possible world, which is probably the author's intention anyway. What kind of a world does that seem to be? Obviously a world with much tenderness and sensitivity. In a world full of relationships that might be possible but probably only where the relationships were close? For instance, it would not be achievable in city life.
From: Father William
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Subject: A World with Much Tenderness & Sensitivity
As much as I might wish otherwise, I think you are correct about relationships being less close in more intense environments. I know I am capable of much greater sensitivity living this stage of life in a quiet, remote and beautiful natural setting...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Subject: RE: A World with Much Tenderness & Sensitivity
Yes, of course, but there are those extraordinary persons who can even be in prison and still be very much into tenderness and sensitivity. How is that possible? I have no idea!
What does strike me as true, is that the possibility of "going beyond" the merely rational remains available to those who don't ever let "vision" depart their environment. I think that you have latched onto the latter in the manner of entering a jet stream and you’re not going to be deterred....I'm supporting you.
From: Father William
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009
Subject: Slipping In & Out of the Jet Stream
I thank you for your support, my friend – and I still do go in and out of the jet stream! For example, even though I’ve supposedly been “on retreat” over the Easter weekend with 28 of the most tender and sensitive (23 female) people, I felt way stretched by the structure and interaction and am now finding my way back into the stream. I need very, very little face-to-face interaction at this point...
12:25:11 PM
|
|
The Shack Makes Marketing Sense
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009
Subject: RE: “The Shack” & The Natural World
Well, I'm not quite through the book yet, but the part that you just referred to (in "the cave") about Sophia the Wisdom personality of all the ages, formulated itself in a real way for me. I think I'm ready to declare a victory for the author (I'm not sure who else!). Since it leaves a total gap, as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the "formulation," is, well, an epiphany of the imagination--for which I allow him as much credit as he seems to need!
I would say that I much prefer the Buddhist concept of the subject/object dichotomy to Wm Paul Young's. I see no need for the Trinitization of things. However, separation as a delineation of modern man I totally agree with. The question is: do we need to go from the plight of separation to that of trinitizing--why bother?
From: Father William
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Subject: "The Shack" Makes Marketing Sense
I look upon “The Shack” as being most valuable for helping a great many Christians get a glimpse of - and maybe even return to - the message of Love and Oneness Christ was repeating. That it uses the Trinity to do this makes a great deal of marketing sense to me.
I agree they are many of us who don't need the message filtered and distorted through particular religious frames, but obviously there are a lot more who do. I am grateful to those, like Young, who will do this work. He's reaching an audience I never would...
12:23:28 PM
|
|
The Shack & “The Natural World”
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009
Subject: RE: Encouragement to Read “The Shack”
I just started the Introduction this afternoon. But I would add to your readers’ comments about this month's Musings, how much I see the natural world, the world of nature, as providing the vessel for all of our "participations". Relaxing into that natural world gives us the foundation from which to explore spiritually. If we start from that premise there is literally no limit.
From: Father William
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Subject: “The Shack” & The Natural World
I think you will find the natural world is central to “The Shack’s” concept of spirit, especially when you get to part in the meadow when Mack is enabled to truly “see” – this reminds me of my own experiences with hallucinogenics in the 70’s...
12:22:41 PM
|
|
Encouragement to Read The Shack
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Subject: RE: Re-presenting Christianity via Multiple Channels
Your comment makes me rethink the idea of reading "The Shack." What I'm trying to avoid is the shelving of yet another unpleasant religious (especially the "Christian") type of encounter...I've done more than my share of the latter, I think! But if you're correct that The Shack offers "another channel," then maybe I'll have to reconsider. Could you possibly elucidate what you mean by that (give me encouragement!)?
From: Father William
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2009
Subject: Encouragement to Read “The Shack”
Your request coincides perfectly with my finishing this month’s Musings:
===========================================================
THE CENTER FOR THIRD AGE NEWSLETTER – APRIL 2009
1. FATHER WILLIAM’S MONTHLY MUSINGS
2. WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU DIVIDE SCIENCE BY GOD?
3. US GOVT ASKS EVOLUTIONARY LEADERS FOR HELP
4. MEDITATION GIVES BRAIN A CHARGE
5. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GEEZERS GO ONLINE?
6. THIS MONTH'S LINKS:
===========================================================
THIS MONTH’S QUOTE – HOW WE LOST EDEN FROM “THE SHACK”
"When you chose independence over relationship, you became a danger to each other. Others became objects to be manipulated or managed for your own happiness..."
===========================================================
1. FATHER WILLIAM’S MONTHLY MUSINGS
April Greetings, Good Friends...
I want to make clear this is not an “April Fool’s” issue. I know I run risks in quoting from “The Shack” because of the controversy it has created in the Christian world where many are embracing it as true Christianity and others are damning it as heresy. I do not want to engage, or propose anyone else engage, in these civil wars.
But I do want to use “The Shack’s” personally disturbing re-interpretation of humanity’s original error – our “fall from grace” and consequent loss of Eden – as my focus for this month’s Musings.
Let me tell you how this best-selling book (44 weeks at #1 on TNYT trade fiction list) came to me. I have a very bright, conservative friend in Texas, and we have compared our varying philosophical and political perspectives for decades now. While certainly not always agreeing, we do have great respect for each other. A few weeks ago he sent me this email:
“If you have not already read ‘The Shack’, you should know that I thought of you very often when reading it... I read it in its entirety. I seldom do that with fiction, as I am a slow reader, but this was masterfully done and so thought provoking...”
I’d not been aware of the book before, but got it easily even here in NZ, and would have read it twice except my lovely wife, Donna, absconded with it to Auckland (this is the lady who couldn’t bring herself “to use the G-word” when we first met).
One of its ideas is causing me to deeply rethink my lifelong values of independence and individuality. See if you might find yourself in a similar quandary, especially in these tumultuous times.
“The Shack” offers a new interpretation, at least for me, of how we screwed up things way back “in the garden.” It was in choosing to be independent of, rather than in relationship with, each other and the universe (put God here if you like) that we created – and will continue to create - our myriad problems.
Perhaps some of you don’t see this as such a big deal. But consider the impact on my conservative friend and me. Both of us have been deeply imprinted with the male archetype of independence. REAL MEN ARE NOT DEPENDENT – NO WAY, NO HOW! In my deepest psyche I have always tried to be like John Wayne. What if my choice of such independence - and isolation - is a tragic flaw?
I am not alone. This will require a huge re-conceiving of self for many of my generation, especially as we live longer and age beyond our physical abilities to be “self-sufficient”. But if we can succeed in releasing our addiction to independence, we might well reach another stage in our psychological evolution:
FOUR STAGES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL GROWTH
As we grow in years, hopefully we also grow in maturity. The progression of this psychological growth underlies our movement from childhood to mature adult:
AS A CHILD my vulnerability makes me dependent on my parents, teachers and other adults. This infantile DEPENDENCE is immature over-reliance on the authority of others. It is not adult behavior.
AS AN ADOLESCENT my need to grow creates a counter-dependence toward those I must now break away from. COUNTER-DEPENDENCE means resisting all authority no matter how appropriate or helpful the authority might be. This is the opposite Direction of Error of dependence; it is also immature behavior (although as teen-agers we didn't see it that way).
AS A YOUNG ADULT my accumulated power and intelligence open up new possibilities for independent thought and action. This healthy INDEPENDENCE initiates my capacity for mature self-direction and is part of everyone's movement out of adolescence. But it is not the end-all and be-all of our psychological growth.
AS A MATURE ADULT my experience, maturity and wisdom guide my power and allow an inter-dependence that can truly move the mountains of the world. INTER-DEPENDENCE combines self-direction with cooperation, and results in the ability genuinely relate to others so we can mutually build a world good for all.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? So why don’t I do what seems so reasonable?
Because I am deeply, deeply programmed* to believe independence, individuality and self-sufficiency are “the right way to be.” And in my “right way to be” comes “my right” to judge others who stray from the path of independence I’m so invested in.
But the paradox of judgment is another story for another time. Hope you enjoying the change of seasons wherever you are!
Much Love, FW
*If you’d like a look how our “deep, deep programming” occurs, check out:
http://www.fatherwilliam.org/FW-GL%20Unconscious%201.htm
For this month’s radio show about FW’s life’s seasons:
http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/Wz5PKgns
For more of Father William:
http://www.fatherwilliam.org/
===========================================================
To subscribe please go to:
www.FatherWilliam.org
To unsubscribe email FatherWilliam@ThirdAgeCenter.com with “Unsubscribe” in the Subject line. Thank you.
===========================================================
Third Age Think Tank © Copyright 2002, The Center for Third Age Leadership, except where indicated otherwise. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprint only with permission from copyright holder(s). All trademarks are property of their respective owners. All contents provided as is. No express or implied income claims made herein. This newsletter is available by subscription only. We neither use nor endorse the use of spam.
Please feel free to use excerpts from this newsletter as long as you give credit with a link to our page: www.ThirdAgeCenter.com. Thank you!
===========================================================
I plan to order a copy.
I look forward to your responses...
PS: Be patient with the first 75 pages – they develop the plot that has made it so readable for so many, but I found myself much more interested in the stuff that comes once Mack’s meeting with the trio begins...
I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.
There’s something more I’m recognizing about my continuing connection with The Shack. At first I was inspired by the re-presentation of Christianity in ways that match so much of my own spiritual understanding, and I still am. But what has become most important is that my reading of the narrative and dialogue has elevated me to a new ability to “relax into participation.” I now carry another presence in me I can access any time when I remember to do so. This access opens me to “relaxing” and gives me a friendly companion who is much like “the witness self” described in many traditions. What’s so right for me is this “ordinary” companion has a sense of humor while clearly not enmeshed in or confused by my normal world. In many ways, he reminds me of Kris Kristofferson. Of course, he would be seen by most Christians as a Jesus-like figure, but that is still too big a stretch for me. Like you, I am more comfortable in personal frameworks rather than institutional ones.
12:21:33 PM
|
|
Re-Presenting Christianity via Multiple Channels
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009
Subject: Spong on Job
I'm glad for that, and for your understanding of my diffidence! Do keep me informed of your "new and significant thoughts," to which I would be delighted to respond.
I'm sure you will be interested in the attached, written by John Shelby Spong, who is one of the New Consciousness thinkers. His wit and humor bring humans into an altered perspective of how humanity handles the need for the concept of perfectibility.
The Origins of the Bible, Part XXIII: Job, the Icon of New Consciousness
To those outside the traditional religious circles, the Book of Job is probably the best known book in the Bible. It raises the deepest human question and deals with the most ancient of human fears. It examines the issue of meaning through the lens of human suffering and the absence of fairness and justice. As such the Book of Job has a counterpart in every religious tradition of the world. The great 20th century psychiatrist Carl Jung used this book as the basis of his probing the dimensions of human life in what I want to believe is his most profound work, The Answer to Job. Solving the question of why there is evil and suffering has been part of the human inquiry forever. It should surprise no one that these themes find a place in the Bible.
The original story of Job seems to date from about 1000-800 BCE and versions of it can be found among many nations, leading us to suspect that this is a universal human narrative. The biblical version of this story, however, did not get written until the 500s. We can date it fairly accurately, since it reflects elements of Persian religion that came into Jewish awareness during and after the exile of the 6th century BCE. The Book of Job, for example, introduces the figure of Satan into the biblical story, but in this book Satan is not yet an evil figure or even a fallen angel. That would develop later. In Job Satan is simply a part of the heavenly court who acts on God's command. The prologue to this book sets the stage for the drama.
God and Satan are discussing the faithfulness of God's servant Job. Satan suggests that Job's faithfulness is only because he has been blessed with riches and a large family. "Why should he not be faithful?" Satan asks, "since the system of reward and punishment works for him?" Would he still be faithful, Satan wonders, if his faithfulness was not so abundantly rewarded? God defends Job's faithfulness as sincere, but resolves to determine whether God or Satan is correct. God authorizes Satan to test Job for a season. Satan would remove the rewards of the good life from Job in order to determine whether his faithfulness would continue. This is when tragedy sweeps down on Job. His wealth is destroyed, his wives and children are killed and his health is taken from him. Job then tries to reconcile the established wisdom that God rewards faithfulness and punishes evil with his experience. Job is a righteous man. There is no debate about that since even God has certified his goodness in the introduction. Job, however, has now been brought low by these calamities. If calamities result from an evil life, he wonders, how can the righteous Job goodness explain his misfortunes? The stage is set for the entrance of Job's comforters.
Three of Job's friends, Eliphaz, Zophar and Bildad, hear of Job's tragedies and come to console him. The conversation between Job and his friends goes on for some thirty chapters. Supporting their conclusions, Job's friends have the common wisdom of that age, made up of undoubted "truths." God, as a just deity, rewards righteousness and punishes evil. For God to punish a righteous man would not only be inconceivable, but blasphemous. Job's friends buttress their argument by quoting scripture, since the Bible was filled with this traditional interpretation of God. Every defeat that the people of Israel had ever endured was seen by them as God's punishment for their disobedience. The message of the prophets was clear. The Jewish people had been punished with boils when King David conducted a census that displeased God. Moses had been punished with death because he had put God to the test in the wilderness of a place called Meribah. God had rewarded the people of Israe l with the Exodus and the miracle at the Red Sea for the faithful endurance of their sufferings under the oppression of the Egyptians. This idea that if one obeyed the law and worshiped God properly one could count on blessings from heaven was a central tenet in popular Jewish religion. If one did not, the vengeance of God was said to be sure and swift. Deep down this firmly held belief delivered the Jewish people from the threat of meaninglessness. There was purpose, not chaos, in life. This purpose was best revealed in that human behavior controlled the response of God. Human goodness put God on one's side with rewards. Human faithlessness and evil brought God's wrath and divine retribution. Job's friends were confident in the rightness of their convictions.
When they confronted Job's calamities, there was, therefore, only one possible explanation. Job must be guilty of some unseen evil, so they came to help him come to grips with his sinfulness, to beg for forgiveness and to seek the mercy of God. They felt compelled to get Job to see the evil of his ways, believing that to be the only way to bring an end to his tragedy. Theological correctness was thus confronted by human experience and, as so often is the case, it simply did not fit.
Job stood alone against this common theological wisdom. He knew he was not deserving of these calamities. He could not deny the experience of his own character. He knew himself to be upright and honest, one who not only obeyed the law faithfully, but who also paid proper homage to the God of his ancestors. Yet he also knew that he had witnessed the loss of all that he valued – his family, his fortune and his health. In the most dramatic moment in the story, Job is portrayed as sitting on top of a garbage heap, scratching the infected sores of his body with a piece of broken pottery, alone with his inner integrity. None of his calamities made rational sense unless he was deserving of this treatment. The pressure from his friends was to face and to admit these things, to judge himself as evil and thus to make his suffering make sense.
The meaning of life itself was thus at stake in this debate. Only by the admission of his evil could he keep at bay the deep and perennial human fear that maybe there was not a God who was in control. If there is no God then perhaps life was chaotic, ruled only by chance, fate or luck, possessing no purpose, no meaning and no redemptive qualities. If that turned out to be the case then the human alternative was only to hope for the chance of blessing, since one could not earn it, or to endure endless suffering if that was to be his fate, with no further court of appeal. If the common theological wisdom did not operate then Job had to decide either that God was not just or that there was no God. This was the unspoken fear that Job's tormenters were resisting, and like all theological fundamentalists, that was why they pressed their case with such single-minded fervor.
Job, on the other hand, was willing to run this enormous risk because the common theological wisdom simply did not interpret properly his experience. With the unprecedented courage of one seeking a new human breakthrough, he stood against the conclusions of his friends, forcing on them a new alternative.
The Book of Job ends not with a negotiated settlement of this dispute, but with a new vision of God who spoke out of the whirlwind to challenge the inadequacy of every human attempt to state how God works and to discredit every human effort to define the holy. The voice of God reminded Job that the human mind cannot embrace the reality of God. "Where were you when the foundations of the word were laid?" The ways of the divine are not the ways of the human. That is always the fatally wrong theological assumption.
Religion at its core is based on the arrogance of believing that human beings can not only discern the ways of God, but they can also act in such a way as to control the actions of God. The human sense of fairness is read into the understanding of God. The human attempt to control human behavior reinforces the common theological wisdom that expresses itself in a reward and punishment mentality. Heaven and hell are nothing more than the assertion that the mind of God, as we human beings have created it, is still operating to reward or punish us after our deaths. Religion almost inevitably creates God in the image of the human being and then tries to force reality into that frame of reference. That is why there is no religious system that is eternal. That is why when human experience can no longer be interpreted adequately inside the traditional religious framework, the framework itself begins to die.
The death of a religious system is never easy. The fear engendered by the loss of religion, or even what we think of as the death of God, engulfs human life in a sea of potential meaninglessness. Such a death always produces emotional denial or fundamentalist fervor; a killing hostility directed toward that which or those who have shattered our religious delusions. It also, however, always produces emancipation from the evils of religion that many people welcome. It is the evils of religion that force us either into a new religious oppression or the building of a new secular city. The struggle to find a new alternative, however, also stretches our consciousness into new dimensions of what it means to be human and that is where hope is born.
Job resisted the theological conclusions of his day. Job refused to let his experience be interpreted by the categories of the past. He held on until the birth of a new consciousness engulfed him. Job is thus an icon through which we can see the meaning of a profound religious paradigm shift.
Today we are experiencing exactly that sort of paradigm shift. Our experience has rendered the religious answers of yesterday to be inoperative. The defenders of the inadequate answers of the past are anxious. The critics of those answers feel a new freedom. The God of yesterday dies as we struggle to view the birth of the God of tomorrow. Job is thus an eternal symbol of that eternal human struggle.
Log in to the essay archive at JohnShelbySpong.com to read previous columns in the Origins of the Bible series.
From: Father William
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009
Subject: Re-presenting Christianity via Multiple Channels
Spong makes great sense to me even if his newsletter does seem a bit overpriced. “The Shack” makes the same kind of sense in a similar way – by re-presenting the nature of Christianity – but doesn’t create resistance by framing the redo as “the death of a religious system.”
I do know you support the death of religious systems, but I doubt you and Spong will be effectively persuasive with the vast majority of “Christians” around, so I’m glad “The Shack” offers another channel…
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Subject: RE: Re-presenting Christianity via Multiple Channels
Your comment makes me rethink the idea of reading "The Shack." What I'm trying to avoid is the shelving of yet another unpleasant religious (especially the "Christian") type of encounter...I've done more than my share of the latter, I think! But if you're correct that The Shack offers "another channel," then maybe I'll have to reconsider. Could you possibly elucidate what you mean by that (give me encouragement!)?
12:19:39 PM
|
|
Going Deeper & The Shack
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009
Subject: RE: How the Light Gets In
Ah, so, are we looking only for "the cracks in everything"? I think not. What is not "cracked," or crackable, would be, I would say, what we are looking for. What the cracks do reveal to us is that there is something beneath the cracks (as often, darkness rather than light), and that it is through the darkness that we find the light--if we are willing to endure through our own obtuseness.
From: Father William
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009
Subject: The “Un-Crackable”
Yes, I see the cracks as only giving us a glimpse of the “un-crackable” and sometimes requiring us to go into the darkness to find that light. I seem to feel confident of finding the light more frequently...
Going “deeper” seems to be on both our minds right now.
I am reading a book you may not be interested in as it initially appears to be Christian based. But about 40% in we learn the Trinity is portrayed with a black mama as God called “Papa,” Jesus as a woodworking good guy out of Northern Exposure and the Holy Spirit as a lovely oriental lass who’s hard to see directly. Jesus says a number of things I like such as – “I’m not big on religions” and “I’m not a Christian.”
The intriguing new notion for me is that our primary error is seeking to be “independent” and thereby “safe.” (Of course, ownership is a tactic for achieving such independence and safety.) While I’m only ¾ done, I think the re-presentation of how we “fell out of the garden” (choosing "independence" and therefore "separation") creates some deep rethinking for conservatives. It certainly is for the conservative friend who suggested it to me. Any interest?
The Shack by Wm Paul Young
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Subject: RE: Going Deeper: Ownership & Independence
Yes, I am interested, so tell me more.
From: Father William
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009
Subject: “The Shack”
I’m feeling a bit low energy this morning so here are a couple of reviews of
“The Shack” for you to check out. The first is an attack from a traditional Christian perspective, and this does a good job of illustrating what I find so positive – I recommend you go to the link for the whole thing…
Deceived by a counterfeit "Jesus"
The twisted "truths" of The Shack & A Course in Miracles
By Berit Kjos - February 14, 2008
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/shack.htm
Two books (one new, one old) have suddenly grabbed public attention and captured the hearts of multitudes. One is long and instructional -- a dictation from a channeled spirit guide. The other is a fictional testimony full of tear-jerking dialogue. A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is obviously occult, while the more subtle message of The Shack by William P. Young has been widely accepted in postmodern churches.
The two books share a common message. I saw a stark preview of it back in 1992. Skimming through a magazine called Well-Being Journal, I noticed this New Age "insight" from the author's "inner guide:"
"Many people believe in evil, sin, and dark forces. It is your purpose to teach the opposite which is the Truth: there is no devil, no hell, no sin, no guilt except in the creative mind of humankind."
I heard similar deceptions at Gorbachev's 1997 State of the World Forum. At the time, keynote speaker Marianne Williamson was touting the Kabbalah, not A Course in Miracles (ACIM). While those New Age "insights" would fit both, they are best expressed through ACIM, which Williamson is now popularizing through Oprah Winfrey's weekly radio program.
The Shack calls for a similar denial of reality. Yet countless pastors and church leaders are delighting in its message. By ignoring (or redefining) sin and guilt, they embrace an inclusive but counterfeit "Christianity" that draws crowds but distorts the Bible. Discounting Satan as well, they weaken God's warnings about deception. No wonder His armor for today's spiritual war became an early victim of this spreading assault on Truth...
This one is quite lengthy (even in its short form), but is written by “The Shack’s” author and co-authors – gives a full story of how the book came about and evolved…
http://theshackreview.com/content/TheShackShorterReview.pdf
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Subject: RE: “The Shack”
I read the reviews that you forwarded. It would also be interesting to read "reviews" by someone who is not an obvious evangelical believer! They are so quick (the evangelicals) to come out of their hiding places where only the Word is digested.
I don't think I want to read The Shack--it sounds rather elemental to me, from my early background in the evangelicalism of my mother (something I rejected long ago), and my more recent exposure to the practices of Unitarian-Universalism, which I have likewise come to regard as inadequate. That there is evil in the world I do not doubt, but I don't blame that on the "fallen nature" of humanity like the Bible does.
We each have to write our own "book."
From: Father William
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009
Subject: RE: “The Shack”
I didn't think it would suit you - and it is triggering new and significant thoughts in me. When, and if, I make some sense of those, I'll share them with you...
12:18:37 PM
|
|
Still Taking Space & “The Cracks in Everything”
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009
Subject: RE: “Effing” & A Question
"Getting more to offer"! Ah, that is indeed the question. Re your question, since our recent dispute over the meaning of a particular concept I have become hesitant to make any claim of overall agreement!
The ineffable seems always to be pristine territory. That's why your suggestion of how to get persons to venture out into same seems so important to me.
From: Father William
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009
Subject: Still Taking Space
I don’t want you to be hesitant about making any claims you want, especially the more outrageous ones! When I feel I need to push back a bit, I will. Go ahead, my friend, wherever your thinking takes us.
I, too, think helping people experiment with their versions of the ineffable is important, and, if I do return to that work, I’ll be much better for all because of the space I am taking. I just had too much ego involved in the previous work, and the ego strokes I got were too much of the motivation. Unlike Jung, it’s taking me more than four years…
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009
Subject: RE: Still Taking Space
And, remember, in the case of Carl Jung he had to go against the inflexible giant of an ego in the person of Freud before he even started his "four years," (at least as I recall). I wonder if that tells us something--that there has to be a time of dark struggle before any light can appear? That "light" also seems to come in like the surf from a vast ocean of discovery before it throws up the sands and shells for us to sift. Perhaps that's the way evolution unfolded itself to Darwin.
From: Father William
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009
Subject: How the Light Gets In
I was too rebellious (read that ego-centered) to tolerate another ego like Freud’s for very long, so most of mine is self-constructed. Deconstructing is finally becoming not only easier, but enjoyable!
And these words from Leonard Cohen have been floating around my head for some weeks now...
“Ring the bells that still will ring.
Put aside your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack in everything –
That’s how the light gets in.”
12:14:57 PM
|
|
|
Thursday, March 19, 2009 |
Daimons & The Ineffable...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Monday, Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Subject: RE: Daimons & The Ineffable
In the event you find out how to "effing the ineffable" please let me know--that will be ..."beyond?" Which reminds me of a column which appears each month in "Tikkun," titled Beyondananda (a takeoff on eastern philo/religiousity). It's easy to spoof that sort of thing, for much of it is fake. On the other hand, I think an honest appraisal of "spirit" is what you and I are interested in unearthing. Come to think of it I'm not sure you agree with that last sentence!
As for daimon, I somehow gain satisfaction from the word's antiquity. And because I've for a long time thought that ancient Greek philosophy was onto something that unfortunately got squashed by a victorious Christianity, it is necessary to go back to that time period before venturing into something "beyond" where they were.
From: Father William
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009
Subject: “Effing” & A Question
Like Watts, my business also was “effing the ineffable." To me this meant helping people gain enough of a rationale for the ineffable to get interested in trying to experience it. That plus offering some simple exercises (like The Gallery of Vision) to help tastes of the experience occur. I may go back into business when I have more to offer.
Why would you think I wouldn’t agree that “an honest appraisal of ‘spirit’ is what you and I are interested in unearthing.”?
10:16:30 AM
|
|
“Effing the Ineffable"...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009
Subject: RE: Silence, Glory & Available Grace
Yes, I got the pictures of the urn--beautiful! Apparently, you have a Socratic "daimon" that appears to you at essential moments. Congratulations! So now you know you are on the right path! I want to be in tune with you as you progress.
I'm glad you are able to remain in "the silence." The silence is the ineffable.
From: Father William
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Subject: Daimons & The Ineffable
I love the notion of a “Daimon” – Have you read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy? That’s where I learned about daimons in depth.
I do seem to be pretty solidly located in the light now, and being able to spend longer bits of time in internal silence is the key, I think.
I enjoy Alan Watts’ saying, "I'm in the business of effing the ineffable."
10:15:31 AM
|
|
Finding My Path Even Closer to Home...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2009
Subject: RE: “The Art” = “Receivership of Reconnection”
Today, for no apparent reason, a Christmas song came to mind: "Angels from the realms of glory, wing their flight o'er all the world..." I thought to myself, "how inspiring." I don't believe in angels, but inspiration I do believe in. Is this an example of how the spiritual in concept is transformed into comprehensible form for human benefit? I.e., one doesn't have to believe in something in order to benefit in a very real way!
Did you receive this message?
From: Father William
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009
Subject: Silence, Glory & Available Grace
I did get your message, Ed, and apologize for taking so long to reply. I’ve been working on practicing “the art” and think I have mastered a small early step. When my thoughts run on (which they do all the time) and I notice (which is much less frequent), I am able to close my eyes and switch gears into silence for a few minutes. I’m not able to stay long in this peaceful place, but I am able to find it regularly now. I want to continue increasing the frequency of my “noticing” and the length of time I remain in the silence.
Thank you for the lines from the Christmas song. Like you, I am inspired by them, not in a literal way, but as a metaphor of how grace is so available to us all. I see my finding my silence as a part of this inspiration and grace...
From: Father William
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009
Subject: Finding My Path Even Closer to Home
In 1975 I had a vision of being in my path moving toward a great sun on the horizon. The light was drawing me toward it, and I knew I was on my path and had been travelling it for some time. I also knew I had gone as far as could and that I couldn’t see over the horizon to where I would go next. I wanted to see what the future held and how get there, but I couldn’t. This was partially frustrating, but mostly I thought it meant a big change to another path I couldn’t quite imagine.
That path turned out to be a quarter century of immersion into the material world consulting and all that brought with it. It was necessary and enjoyable to do at the time, and I’m glad to have finished with it. Since 2001 I’ve slowly retreated from the external world into what I now call “my solitude” where I have plenty of time for all that matters to me. I’m experiencing a relaxation and peace that allows me to open to the internal life. It is a joyous thing!
A new insight revealed this to me. My path didn’t go over the horizon to more in the external world, even though that was what I needed to live out for another twenty-five years. My path, when I was ready, led into the light where I became part of the Spirit it represents, and, once I relaxed into entering and participating within, it was a new path I was beginning. That’s where I am now, and it is such a perfect place at this time in my life. Thank you all who helped it be possible...
10:14:58 AM
|
|
“The Art” = “Receivership of Reconnection”...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2009
Subject: RE: Once Again You Open a Portal for Me
You're welcome, Bill. Sounds like a good course toward intensifying "the art."
From: Father William
Sent: Monday, March 9, 2009
Subject: “The Art”
It feels like a workable way for me. And I would like to learn more about your experience of "the art"...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Monday, March 9, 2009
Subject: RE: “The Art”
O.K., so I experience "the art" as coming to me--I don't go to the art. "The art" is the ineffable. IT rejoins us, not we, it. Receivership is the role we have to play in this game. The assignment we have is very simple, that of reception. The suggestion here is that persons, during most of their lifelines, lose connectedness. When opportunity is provided, along the way, to "reconnect", it is something we must seize!
From: Father William
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Subject: “The Art” = “Receivership of Reconnection”
Yes, yes, yes! And I am slowly but surely developing this art. Mostly it is remembering – in this moment – receiving is what I want to do. When I remember, it is not hard to do. In fact, it may be that the remembering to receive creates the act of reception.
Here’s where my gratitude for what I call in solitude helps. In peace and quiet I remember to receive much more often; when I’m engaged in the world of interaction, remembrances are few and far between…
10:10:30 AM
|
|
|
Saturday, March 07, 2009 |
Once Again You Open a Portal for Me...
From: Elder Ed
Sent: Friday, March 6, 2009
Subject: RE:
Yeah, Bill, I'm sorry I got us into this "rift." I set out, I now think, to make some comments about what a person goes through when he is in a state of solitude, but I didn't sufficiently explain to you what it was that I was attempting to do. When, after several tries at it which failed, I gave up in frustration! For that I apologize! I don't want the rift to get any bigger so I'll try again to describe what it was that I was attempting to comment on.
I can see how you would react at what appeared to you to be an effort on my part to redefine the condition known as solitude. I, too, am to a degree familiar with that state of being--and I would call it what is known in psychology as an "altered state of consciousness." You might not agree to the latter, but what I've experienced on such occasions is that I am not in the everyday mode of consciousness but in an intensification that transcends the "ordinary." What I was trying to describe to you what how I saw that intensity as an "art form" composed of spiritual connections which are beyond yourself that provide your life with meaning, value, and purpose. The more such connections you have, the more spiritual you are. The strength of those connections determines spiritual intensity. During solitude an "art form" takes shape which is only possible because of its intensity. The reason I call it an art form is that it is the personal product of those intense connections which you experience as transcendent.
From: Father William
Sent: Friday, March 6, 2009
Subject: I’m Enjoying Again!
Thank you for responding so quickly and caringly. What you say makes perfect sense to me, and I will say much more later. Right now I’m struggling a bit to get the newsletter out, and as soon as that’s done, I’ll share my experiences of “an intensification that transcends the ‘ordinary’”...
Much love, Bill
From: Father William
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2009
Subject: Once Again You Open a Portal for Me
Well, the newsletter is done, and I really liked doing it. Not that it captures very clearly what I’m learning, especially from you, but that it took me a bit further along my learning path.
I couldn’t agree more about solitude being a portal to an "altered state of consciousness" and “an intensification that transcends the ‘ordinary.’” But I am most inspired by your emphasis on those altered stated and intensities being art forms:
“What I was trying to describe to you what how I saw that intensity as an ‘art form’ composed of spiritual connections which are beyond yourself that provide your life with meaning, value, and purpose. The more such connections you have, the more spiritual you are. The strength of those connections determines spiritual intensity. During solitude an ‘art form’ takes shape which is only possible because of its intensity. The reason I call it an art form is that it is the personal product of those intense connections which you experience as transcendent.”
I feel as if I am on the threshold of developing my art as a deliberate practice rather than lurching into those transcendent experiences willy-nilly (which has been my “method” for most of these first 70 years). Your presenting it as a personal art form to be consciously developed takes me forward a good bit in my evolution.
I now look forward to my waking in the night to practice my new art. While still very much a novice, I’ve become pretty constantly confident that it is learnable and I can learn it. This expansion of my reality, that is, being confident these dimensions exist and that I can learn to enter them, is a great step for me – and your particular phrasing is largely responsible.
Whatever additional hints, suggestions and/or methods you can suggest will be more than welcome. Again, thank you...
1:19:51 PM
|
|
===========================================================
THE CENTER FOR THIRD AGE NEWSLETTER – MARCH 2009
1. FATHER WILLIAM’S MONTHLY MUSINGS
2. THE STUMP THEORY
3. THE REAL CRISIS? WE STOPPED BEING WISE!
4. HAS THE GARDEN OF EDEN BEEN FOUND?
5. THIS MONTH'S LINKS:
===========================================================
THIS MONTH’S QUOTES – LEONARD COHEN & JONI MITCHELL
“Well, my friends are gone and my head is grey,
I ache in the places where I used to play...”
“We are stardust, we are golden,
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden...”
===========================================================
1. FATHER WILLIAM’S MONTHLY MUSINGS
Welcome to March, Good Friends...
The above are lyrics from the songs “Tower of Song” and “Woodstock,” and they frame this month’s Musings. You might want to begin by viewing Cohen’s 2008 induction into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7IuCKfA0PM
...and finish by watching Joni sing her classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuISB2ksnMM
Amazing how time passes, isn’t it? This summer is the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock gathering up on Max Yasgur’s farm, and, whether you were for or against it, it remains a generational marker for most of us.
Once again this Old Father William is going to muse about the paradoxes of heart and mind, spirit and science, intangible and tangible. At 70, finding some ways to turn these EITHER/OR’s into a BOTH/AND’s are in my foreground much of the time. Seems to be the same for Leonard, Joni and many other Third Agers. In “Anthem” Leonard sings:
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
In art like this I often find a glimpse of BOTH/AND’s. It’s precisely in the imperfections of the material world that the spirit shines through, and, to see its beauty, you must “forget your perfect offering.” That can sound depressing. Recently a friend told me he hadn’t been into Leonard because his music was too depressing. And another shared this recent quote from A Rob Ulin show with me:
Q: Aside from negativity, is there anything you are positive about?
A: I like Leonard Cohen.
But for me, Leonard’s lyrics were liberating because they helped me know my disappointments in the world were not mine alone. Most importantly, they helped me know I wasn’t crazy – that the world really could be a frighteningly ugly place. This was important to a young man who’d grown up reading about the perfect lives of Dick & Jane and believing my country always had the best interests of everyone at heart.
As the 60’s and 70’s unfolded, Leonard’s music, among other influences, became a saving grace for this naïve soul. Without the support I could well have become a nut case (at least more of one that I am).
So what’s the point, FW?
That, for all my talk about paradoxes, I don’t cope well with their reality. That I still want to hold on to my hope of a “perfect offering” to be found on earth. That I want presidents, athletes, popes and bankers to be unflawed and infallible. That I may never get beyond my childish imprinting that simple good and bad, right and wrong and black and white truly existed and can be found again.
I doubt I’m alone here, especially among those of you also raised by “The Greatest Generation.” Isn’t this why so many of us resonated to Joni’s “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”? Because deep in our psyches we do believe such simple clarity once existed, was lost and can be found again?
Not that we can’t, as Elder Ed puts it, “relax into participation” with the larger universe. But I doubt my rational mind can be a primary guide. Experiencing the larger connections seems to occur in subjective events that don’t communicate or replicate easily, if at all. Often folks who try to share these with their community end up on a locked ward.
So how might we go about increasing our chances of experiencing personal connections with the greater energies of life?
My recipe for “relaxing into participation” in 2009 includes:
- lots of solitude,
- somewhat regular daily meditation,
- needing very little materially.
These three have given me a chance at another:
- living to my heart’s values rather than the world’s.
As Leonard put this one, “It's just self-respect that you're looking for in your work. You just keep on covering your own heart until you can find something in which you can locate your self-respect...”
These first four have come only with Third Age for me; I simply wasn’t able to enjoy them in the busy-ness of my Second Age.
And there is also a fifth element I recommend highly. It’s having a constant sense of humor about myself and everything else. Unlike the first four that emerged in my Third Age, humor has always been with me. It has been my salvation more times than I can count - especially about the most serious stuff! As Woody Allen said:
“Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.”
And so I have. Probably you have, too. And we might as well have a good time with it as long as we’re here.
While I identify and empathize with Joni’s call to “get ourselves back to the garden,” I think forward is the direction we need to go, even if we can’t see ahead. Again, from Leonard...
I met a man who lost his mind
In some lost place I had to find.
“Follow me,” the wise man said,
But he walked behind...
I hope these Musings help you enjoy the rest of the newsletter as well. In “The Stump Theory” Gail Collins advances the interesting perspective that “old is in.” Then Barry Schwartz gives “the talk of his life” saying our present crisis is one of wisdom, not economics. And finally Tom Cox takes us on a fascinating time journey back to what may have been the origin of the “Garden of Eden” story – a very different version than I’ve been used to...
Much Love, FW
PS: My current radio mixes some of these thoughts with Leonard’s early music – you can listen here:
http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WqKWh2RQ
For more of Father William:
http://www.fatherwilliam.org/
===========================================================
To subscribe please go to:
www.FatherWilliam.org
To unsubscribe email FatherWilliam@ThirdAgeCenter.com with “Unsubscribe” in the Subject line. Thank you.
===========================================================
Third Age Think Tank © Copyright 2002, The Center for Third Age Leadership, except where indicated otherwise. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprint only with permission from copyright holder(s). All trademarks are property of their respective owners. All contents provided as is. No express or implied income claims made herein. This newsletter is available by subscription only. We neither use nor endorse the use of spam.
Please feel free to use excerpts from this newsletter as long as you give credit with a link to our page: www.ThirdAgeCenter.com. Thank you!
===========================================================
1:19:02 PM
|
|
© Copyright 2009 Father William.
|
|
|
