Post Retreat Reflections

It was so good meeting many of you last week on retreat. It's a week past already—how time flies!

I have been enjoying Richard Rohr's "Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life." I commend the book to you. Richard writes about Jung's idea of life in two stages: the beginning where we develop our ego identities, establish ourselves in a tradition, with its associated myths, and find our way in life. The second stage is a movement to a new maturity, a further journey toward the True Self. Not everyone makes the second stage. It is elusive. It draws us forward rather than pushes us. It is a journey less concerned with outward things, with career, "getting on," making a name for ourselves, or building something.

Richard says that the further journey is often precipitated by a fall, a period of suffering, a loss, or a disillusionment. It is a seeing through the shallowness of the first half of life. However, the first half is important and can't be missed or bypassed. It is the first half that prepares us for the second half. 

For many folk the first half of life will be formed in a religious tradition, where we accept the dogmas, the structures, the myths, the big picture the tradition gives us. The crisis is often a challenge to the whole thing. The challenge can be very painful. The old securities no longer provide security. The certainties become uncertainties. That which was sure becomes ambiguous at best.

Many folk stay with the crisis and can't move beyond the disillusionment. Bitterness is often present. The adult remains a pouting child, "It's not fair!"

But, some move into a new freedom with a deeper spirituality that relies less on the old certainties of creed, dogma and institution, and more on the ambiguity of the unknown. 

There is much more in Richard's book. Check it out.

I share this because after the retreat a number of folk commented to Jane and I that they saw a maturity about the folk on retreat. We have pondered this. I saw it in the light of Richard's understanding of the two halves of life. It strikes me that in some respects the Lindisfarne Community is a community of the second half. It was born in the second half—precipitated by a disillusionment with the structures and silliness of religion. Those who have been drawn to Lindisfarne are often drawn after a major crisis, a life-shattering event, a great loss, a fall, a deep feeling, "There must be more than this." Lindisfarne folk are often on the further journey toward the True Self.

A caveat or two. I am not suggesting this in any prideful way. I know the deep pain and anguish that many of you have been through. We don't take pride in loss and grief. But in time we can be thankful for them. The crisis points open doors to the further journey. I am simply observing that many of you have walked through the door.

I am not suggesting, either, that the first stage is to be shunned, or made fun of, or regretted. The first journey is that which prepares us for the second journey. Richard molds his book around the myth of the Odyssey. Odysseus leaves Ithaca (the Greek Island, not our little town in upstate NY—but how serendipitous!) and faces many challenges. He returns home to Ithaca, and then faces the second journey. Bilbo Baggins did the same, as I recall. 
Nor am I suggesting that any of us have found the True Self. We are on a journey home. We're traveling together. That is all.

Richard suggests that for many the transition takes place around age 35-55. Something else to ponder. Perhaps there is more truth in the notion of "mid-life crisis" than we often think.
Congratulations to Timothy+, Stenly+, and Chris+ on their ordination to the priesthood. A further journey awaits!
Blessings for the journey to all!
We travel today to Europe ... the journey continues,
+Ab. Andy