Today on Christmas, I’ll share with you Thomas Merton’s words. In Seasons of Celebration, he writes about the birth of Christ. Merton is particularly moved by Christ as light, and our human need not only to receive the light within us, but more, to allow the light to shine through us. This is what Merton says:
Christ is born. He is born to us. And, he is born today. For Christmas is not merely a day like every other day. It is a day made holy and special by a sacred mystery. It is not merely another day in the weary round of time. Today, eternity enters into time and time, sanctified, is caught up into eternity. Today, Christ, the Eternal Word of the Father, who was in the beginning with the Father, in whom all things were made, by whom all things consist, enters into the world which he created in order to reclaim souls who have lost their identity. Therefore, the Church exults as the angels come down to announce not merely an old thing that happened long ago, but a new thing that happens today. For, today, God the Father makes all things new, in his Divine Son, our Redeemer, according to his words: Ecce nova facio omnia. . . .
At Christmas, more than ever, it is fitting to remember that we have no other light but Christ, who is born to us today. Let us reflect that he came down from heaven to be our light, and our life. He came, as he himself assures us, to be our way, by which we may return to the Father. Christ gives us light today to know him, in the Father and ourselves in him, so that thus knowing and possessing Christ, we may have life everlasting with him in the Father. . . .
Having realized, once again, who it is that comes to us, and having remembered that he alone is our light, let us open our eyes to the rising Sun, let us hasten to receive him and let us come together to celebrate the great mystery of charity which is the sacrament of our salvation and of our union in Christ. Let us receive Christ that we may in all truth be “light in the Lord” and that Christ may shine not only to us, but through us, and that we may all burn together in the sweet light of his presence in the world: I mean his presence in us, for we are his Body and his Holy Church. . . .
Christ, light of light, is born today, and since he is born to us, he is born in us as light and therefore we who believe are born today to new light. That is to say, our souls are born to new life and new grace by receiving him who is the Truth. For Christ, invisible in his own nature, has become visible in our nature. What else can this mean, except that first he has become visible as a man and second he has become visible in his Church? He wills to be visible in us, to live in us, and save us through his secret action in our own hearts and the hearts of our neighbors. So, we must receive the light of the newborn Savior by faith, in order to manifest it by our witness in common praise and by the works of our charity towards one another.
[Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration, pp. 102-105.]
Showing posts with label light. Show all posts
Showing posts with label light. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Friday, July 20, 2018
Do Not Go Gentle
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
[From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions]
Long ago I made peace with my own level of comfort with darkness. It's not that I like nor prefer the dark to the light, but over time I found, through life experience -- including joblessness, disease, and relational discord -- that I was not scared by the darkness. I discovered something within my interior unwilling to make a "whatever-it-takes-to-get-rid-of-darkness" deal to provide temporary relief. I've learned a lot about God, myself, and life in the darkness. I seldom enjoy it, but I have made some sort of friendship with it, awkward as it may be.
So I was drawn this week to the Dylan Thomas poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night." I'm not so very familiar with Thomas nor his poetry. It is easy enough to find basic information about him, his life, and his poetry online. He lived a rugged, tumultuous life from what I have read, and apparently drank himself to death, literally. This poem references his father's pending death, while also likely including a good bit of autobiography.
Some commentaries on the poem propose that Thomas advocates a "kicking and screaming" approach to darkness and death, a kind of literal rage. Knowing something of his life, Thomas may indeed suggest a "raging-against" stance toward life's end.
I wonder, however, if rage is the wisest, most life-giving approach to the darkness. Darkness comes to each of us. Death will claim all of us. Rather, "rage" may more richly suggest a stance which does not lie down before the darkness, a posture in which even the darkness does not shut down abundant life. Perhaps the poem's wisdom moves us toward a way of continuing onward in creative living, even when life is shrouded in tumult. Do not go gentle, keep exploring, do not give up your own true self, do not stop creating, move toward your next discovery . . .
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
[From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions]
Long ago I made peace with my own level of comfort with darkness. It's not that I like nor prefer the dark to the light, but over time I found, through life experience -- including joblessness, disease, and relational discord -- that I was not scared by the darkness. I discovered something within my interior unwilling to make a "whatever-it-takes-to-get-rid-of-darkness" deal to provide temporary relief. I've learned a lot about God, myself, and life in the darkness. I seldom enjoy it, but I have made some sort of friendship with it, awkward as it may be.
So I was drawn this week to the Dylan Thomas poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night." I'm not so very familiar with Thomas nor his poetry. It is easy enough to find basic information about him, his life, and his poetry online. He lived a rugged, tumultuous life from what I have read, and apparently drank himself to death, literally. This poem references his father's pending death, while also likely including a good bit of autobiography.
Some commentaries on the poem propose that Thomas advocates a "kicking and screaming" approach to darkness and death, a kind of literal rage. Knowing something of his life, Thomas may indeed suggest a "raging-against" stance toward life's end.
I wonder, however, if rage is the wisest, most life-giving approach to the darkness. Darkness comes to each of us. Death will claim all of us. Rather, "rage" may more richly suggest a stance which does not lie down before the darkness, a posture in which even the darkness does not shut down abundant life. Perhaps the poem's wisdom moves us toward a way of continuing onward in creative living, even when life is shrouded in tumult. Do not go gentle, keep exploring, do not give up your own true self, do not stop creating, move toward your next discovery . . .
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Rilke: Flare up like flame
God speaks to each of us
by Rainer Maria Rilke
I, 59
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you:
beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
[Rainer Maria Rilke, “Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht,” I, 59, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, 88.]
Rilke imagined our creative beginnings as God's walk with us out of the darkness, speaking into us the words we will take a lifetime to recover, to hear fully, and to live into. We hear them dimly. Any journey of enlightenment or illumination is partially the journey of recalling our original purpose, our original identity.
Part of what we slowly hear again is the invitation to "flare up like flame." Perhaps this became Rilke's way of saying, "You are the light of the world." Let the inner fire of your origins, your purpose, your identity become flame. Live from the center of that fire, so that which enflames your life will enlighten others also.
Rilke was a complex man -- aren't we all, after all, complex? -- who heard faint voices most all of his life. I imagine he, like me and you, "dimly heard" these words. Did he live them well? Or not so well? Did he, in his life, "flare up like flame"? I do not know.
But I do know he heard the voice, if only dimly.
And I know we are here, a century later, reading his poem and talking about his vision of our genesis.
YOU are the light of the world. Flare up like flame.
by Rainer Maria Rilke
I, 59
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you:
beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
[Rainer Maria Rilke, “Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht,” I, 59, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, 88.]
Rilke imagined our creative beginnings as God's walk with us out of the darkness, speaking into us the words we will take a lifetime to recover, to hear fully, and to live into. We hear them dimly. Any journey of enlightenment or illumination is partially the journey of recalling our original purpose, our original identity.
Part of what we slowly hear again is the invitation to "flare up like flame." Perhaps this became Rilke's way of saying, "You are the light of the world." Let the inner fire of your origins, your purpose, your identity become flame. Live from the center of that fire, so that which enflames your life will enlighten others also.
Rilke was a complex man -- aren't we all, after all, complex? -- who heard faint voices most all of his life. I imagine he, like me and you, "dimly heard" these words. Did he live them well? Or not so well? Did he, in his life, "flare up like flame"? I do not know.
But I do know he heard the voice, if only dimly.
And I know we are here, a century later, reading his poem and talking about his vision of our genesis.
YOU are the light of the world. Flare up like flame.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
You ARE the Light of the World
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
(Matt. 5:13 - 16)
Some people, writing about these Jesus-words, think the metaphors point to our human potential in connection with God. Even Sacred Space 2018 -- which I find very helpful day-in and day-out -- writes of these verses, "Jesus seems recklessly confident of our potential."
But Jesus is not making a statement about our potential as much as stating the way things are, naming our actual being, and daring to claim the reality of what it means to live in union with God. "You ARE the salt of the earth . . . You ARE the light of the world," he says. This is not potential, but actual reality, the way life is in connection with God.
You are the light of the world -- already! -- so you cannot ask, "How do I become light?" or "How do I get more light?" You cannot not trade in your own light for a brighter light, for someone else's light. The state of light within you has been conferred upon you by virtue of your creation in/by God and then affirmed in your baptism.
You are the light of the world, not as an achievement, nor an accomplishment, nor an attainment. This is who you are in connection with God, who is all Light and who created you in God's own image. Your center is Light, the Light of Love in the imago Dei.
So live from that very Center. Allow the Light to illumine you, to illumine all of you . . . to see and to be seen. Allow the Light to illumine the parts of you that are good and whole and find healing. And allow the Light to illumine that within you which is embarrassing, crippling, and hidden in the shadowy recesses, lurking in the shadows of your inner world.
Let your light shine. That is, just live from your Center. Live your light in your world. Let it shine in the place where you live, not hiding it but putting it out there normally, naturally as the center of who you are. You don't have to make an effort to be a witness, to shine your light. Simply live from your center. Live from the inside-out. Walk your life-path according to this interior fire, rather than according to the exterior guides of social pressure and cultural expectations and narrow tribalism and fearful protectionism. Let your Light-filled center -- enlightened! -- guide you. That's all. If you do that, the light burning and flaming and enlightening you will shine for others, for the world.
Simply allowing the Light to illumine you, your relationships, your way of being in the world, your way of working . . . this in itself will enlighten the world.
I know people for whom this has and is happening. The Light that flames within them shines in the world, not because they are bold or extravagant or extroverted or good speakers. They simply live from the Center, inside-out, and the Light that illumines their interior shines in how they are in the world.
I think this is at least partially what Jesus means when he says to you and me: "You ARE the light of the world."
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
(Matt. 5:13 - 16)
Some people, writing about these Jesus-words, think the metaphors point to our human potential in connection with God. Even Sacred Space 2018 -- which I find very helpful day-in and day-out -- writes of these verses, "Jesus seems recklessly confident of our potential."
But Jesus is not making a statement about our potential as much as stating the way things are, naming our actual being, and daring to claim the reality of what it means to live in union with God. "You ARE the salt of the earth . . . You ARE the light of the world," he says. This is not potential, but actual reality, the way life is in connection with God.
You are the light of the world -- already! -- so you cannot ask, "How do I become light?" or "How do I get more light?" You cannot not trade in your own light for a brighter light, for someone else's light. The state of light within you has been conferred upon you by virtue of your creation in/by God and then affirmed in your baptism.
You are the light of the world, not as an achievement, nor an accomplishment, nor an attainment. This is who you are in connection with God, who is all Light and who created you in God's own image. Your center is Light, the Light of Love in the imago Dei.
So live from that very Center. Allow the Light to illumine you, to illumine all of you . . . to see and to be seen. Allow the Light to illumine the parts of you that are good and whole and find healing. And allow the Light to illumine that within you which is embarrassing, crippling, and hidden in the shadowy recesses, lurking in the shadows of your inner world.
Let your light shine. That is, just live from your Center. Live your light in your world. Let it shine in the place where you live, not hiding it but putting it out there normally, naturally as the center of who you are. You don't have to make an effort to be a witness, to shine your light. Simply live from your center. Live from the inside-out. Walk your life-path according to this interior fire, rather than according to the exterior guides of social pressure and cultural expectations and narrow tribalism and fearful protectionism. Let your Light-filled center -- enlightened! -- guide you. That's all. If you do that, the light burning and flaming and enlightening you will shine for others, for the world.
Simply allowing the Light to illumine you, your relationships, your way of being in the world, your way of working . . . this in itself will enlighten the world.
I know people for whom this has and is happening. The Light that flames within them shines in the world, not because they are bold or extravagant or extroverted or good speakers. They simply live from the Center, inside-out, and the Light that illumines their interior shines in how they are in the world.
I think this is at least partially what Jesus means when he says to you and me: "You ARE the light of the world."
Monday, September 15, 2014
Thoughts about Genie-Gods and Darkness
The story is too long to tell today. In brief, while in a restaurant recently, I heard a monologue at the table next to me in which a person was "instructing" others at his table in how to get good things ("blessings") from God. This fellow described God as "a blank check" who is just waiting for us to ask for "all the treasures in God's storehouse." We don't have more, he said, "because we don't claim what is already ours."
I won't describe the mix of emotions I felt as this scene unfolded within a few feet of me . . . those of you who know me well will be able to guess a few of my feelings pretty easily.
What I finally came to as I walked out of that scene was the desire to reach out to the 5 or 6 people around that table and say, "You know, if this doesn't work out for any of you in the days ahead, come see me. Here's my card."
Because I know a whole bunch of people -- many of the folks I hang out with day in and day out -- for whom religion and cultural expressions of Christianity have not worked out. From old-school Catholics to prosperity-Gospel evangelicals to hard-shell Baptists . . . and everything else along the spectrum . . . I spend a lot of time with folks whose personal experience has not lined up with the teaching of a particular expression of the Church. Many of these folks have dropped out of organized religious expression, yet they have not given up on some expression of their faith. They wait and they hope. They are people of soul who long for something authentic that will not shrink from the darkness of our world -- or the darkness of their own interior. They are people for whom religious expression and spirituality are not an escape from the real world, but a healing engagement with it. They are people who take seriously the inner life and its expression in the outer world, not because it gets us "the treasures of God" as some kind of self-interested blank check, but because it connects us to a Source that is generously endless and life-sustaining.
I wanted to say some of this to those sitting at that table . . . to offer them a place to go and a people to be with when their God-as-Santa-Claus systems stopped working. Alas, I didn't intrude on their party, so I let them be. (I likely would have been written off by them as an infidel, anyway.)
The entire scenario, as I've reflected on it for a couple of weeks, has also reminded me of how much more appealing is a life of goodies and treasures, a life of all sunlight where a huge Genie-God makes all the roads smooth, takes away all the disease, removes all the stumbling blocks at work, gives us what we want on command . . . as if we shouldn't have to deal with difficulty, crisis, tragedy, or death. (In the Genie-God scenario, Jesus dealt with death, tragedy, and darkness so that we would not have to. His death means that we get the goodies.)
Maybe it's just my personality, but I tend to be drawn to those who are honest about both the darkness and the light. It seems to me that those who are in touch with darkness -- the world's and their own -- offer a tremendous gift to the world. They don't gloss over the darkness, nor do they run from it. They are comfortable in it, not needing to change it into sugar-canes and sweetness. Sometimes the darkness does get transformed into light, but those who can abide in the darkness do not demand that it be so in order to be happy. They find their happiness and delight regardless the weather.
I've noticed in recent years, for example, that poets who are familiar with darkness catch my attention. I've thought of all this today because I re-read a poem by R. S. Thomas this morning. Thomas was a Welsh pastor whose poetry is tinged in darkness. No, more than tinged, his poetry is immersed in darkness. It would be too breezy to call him a pessimist. I simply think of him as a realist, fully engaged with God and with life so that he doesn't hide from the difficult questions. He sometimes is comforted by God's presence, for example, but more often he confronts God over God's perceived absence. His poetry has the feel of the Hebrew Psalms that confront God and question God and demand answers from God, knowing that they may or may not come. And whether they come or not ceases to be the issue. At the core Thomas, like the psalms, engages God.
This is the poem I have considered again today. The last few lines are the lines I'm living with today.
Pilgrimages
R. S. Thomas
There is an island there is no going
to but in a small boat the way
the saints went, travelling the gallery
of the frightened faces of
the long-drowned, munching the gravel
of its beaches. So I have gone
up the salt lane to the building
with the stone altar and the candles
gone out, and kneeled and lifted
my eyes to the furious gargoyle
of the owl that is like a god
gone small and resentful. There
is no body in the stained window
of the sky now. Am I too late?
Were they too late also, those
first pilgrims? He is such a fast
God, always before us and
leaving as we arrive.
There are those here
not given to prayer, whose office
is the blank sea that they say daily.
What they listen to is not
hymns but the slow chemistry of the soil
that turns saints’ bones to dust,
dust to an irritant of the nostril.
There is no time on this island.
The swinging pendulum of the tide
has no clock; the events
are dateless. These people are not
late or soon; they are just
here with only the one question
to ask, which life answers
by being in them. It is I
who ask. Was the pilgrimage
I made to come to my own
self, to learn that in times
like these and for one like me
God will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather and
inexplicable, as though he were in here?
-- R.S. Thomas, Later Poems: 1972 – 1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 125 – 26.
I won't describe the mix of emotions I felt as this scene unfolded within a few feet of me . . . those of you who know me well will be able to guess a few of my feelings pretty easily.
What I finally came to as I walked out of that scene was the desire to reach out to the 5 or 6 people around that table and say, "You know, if this doesn't work out for any of you in the days ahead, come see me. Here's my card."
Because I know a whole bunch of people -- many of the folks I hang out with day in and day out -- for whom religion and cultural expressions of Christianity have not worked out. From old-school Catholics to prosperity-Gospel evangelicals to hard-shell Baptists . . . and everything else along the spectrum . . . I spend a lot of time with folks whose personal experience has not lined up with the teaching of a particular expression of the Church. Many of these folks have dropped out of organized religious expression, yet they have not given up on some expression of their faith. They wait and they hope. They are people of soul who long for something authentic that will not shrink from the darkness of our world -- or the darkness of their own interior. They are people for whom religious expression and spirituality are not an escape from the real world, but a healing engagement with it. They are people who take seriously the inner life and its expression in the outer world, not because it gets us "the treasures of God" as some kind of self-interested blank check, but because it connects us to a Source that is generously endless and life-sustaining.
I wanted to say some of this to those sitting at that table . . . to offer them a place to go and a people to be with when their God-as-Santa-Claus systems stopped working. Alas, I didn't intrude on their party, so I let them be. (I likely would have been written off by them as an infidel, anyway.)
The entire scenario, as I've reflected on it for a couple of weeks, has also reminded me of how much more appealing is a life of goodies and treasures, a life of all sunlight where a huge Genie-God makes all the roads smooth, takes away all the disease, removes all the stumbling blocks at work, gives us what we want on command . . . as if we shouldn't have to deal with difficulty, crisis, tragedy, or death. (In the Genie-God scenario, Jesus dealt with death, tragedy, and darkness so that we would not have to. His death means that we get the goodies.)
Maybe it's just my personality, but I tend to be drawn to those who are honest about both the darkness and the light. It seems to me that those who are in touch with darkness -- the world's and their own -- offer a tremendous gift to the world. They don't gloss over the darkness, nor do they run from it. They are comfortable in it, not needing to change it into sugar-canes and sweetness. Sometimes the darkness does get transformed into light, but those who can abide in the darkness do not demand that it be so in order to be happy. They find their happiness and delight regardless the weather.
I've noticed in recent years, for example, that poets who are familiar with darkness catch my attention. I've thought of all this today because I re-read a poem by R. S. Thomas this morning. Thomas was a Welsh pastor whose poetry is tinged in darkness. No, more than tinged, his poetry is immersed in darkness. It would be too breezy to call him a pessimist. I simply think of him as a realist, fully engaged with God and with life so that he doesn't hide from the difficult questions. He sometimes is comforted by God's presence, for example, but more often he confronts God over God's perceived absence. His poetry has the feel of the Hebrew Psalms that confront God and question God and demand answers from God, knowing that they may or may not come. And whether they come or not ceases to be the issue. At the core Thomas, like the psalms, engages God.
This is the poem I have considered again today. The last few lines are the lines I'm living with today.
Pilgrimages
R. S. Thomas
There is an island there is no going
to but in a small boat the way
the saints went, travelling the gallery
of the frightened faces of
the long-drowned, munching the gravel
of its beaches. So I have gone
up the salt lane to the building
with the stone altar and the candles
gone out, and kneeled and lifted
my eyes to the furious gargoyle
of the owl that is like a god
gone small and resentful. There
is no body in the stained window
of the sky now. Am I too late?
Were they too late also, those
first pilgrims? He is such a fast
God, always before us and
leaving as we arrive.
There are those here
not given to prayer, whose office
is the blank sea that they say daily.
What they listen to is not
hymns but the slow chemistry of the soil
that turns saints’ bones to dust,
dust to an irritant of the nostril.
There is no time on this island.
The swinging pendulum of the tide
has no clock; the events
are dateless. These people are not
late or soon; they are just
here with only the one question
to ask, which life answers
by being in them. It is I
who ask. Was the pilgrimage
I made to come to my own
self, to learn that in times
like these and for one like me
God will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather and
inexplicable, as though he were in here?
-- R.S. Thomas, Later Poems: 1972 – 1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 125 – 26.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
I don't think I know me . . .
A friend commended a folk rock group called Eddie from Ohio. I have a couple of their cd's, and am especially drawn to their song, "I don't think I know me."
The song rehearses a litany of ways the songwriter lives a "responsible" and upstanding life . . . faithfulness to dog and spouse . . . paying utilities (mostly on time) . . . mowing the lawn on Saturdays . . . believing in Jesus' words . . . saying prayers . . . attending the church on the hill . . . looking both ways at stop-signs . . . going on family picnics.
But then, with tongue planted in cheek, the writer records some very surprising things he has done . . . stealing a car for a joyride . . . taking a neighbor's Harley . . . driving the Harley through the potluck line at the family picnic . . . you get the drift.
The chorus, then, is the repetition of this refrain:
I don't think I know me
as well as I thought I did
I don't think I know me
like I thought I did
Couldn't any of us sing this refrain? Don't we all live under some kind of illusion about the kind of person we are?
You may live out of an interior script that says, "I'm terrible. I'm a failure. I'm a moral wreck. My life is a disaster. I'm a worm . . . a wretched sinner." And then you tell yourself -- and others -- stories that support this version of yourself. Sometimes, we even find that others want to confirm this view of us . . . family members, the Church, the educational system. All you know of yourself is that you are a mess.
Or you may live more out of an interior conversation that says, "I am responsible. I do the right thing. I am loyal and hard-working. I am successful. I follow the rules." So you, too, find stories about yourself that support this particular version of your selfhood. You work hard to appear successful, moral, and law-abiding, whether you truly are or not.
Most of us, then, hold either our shadow/darkness or our light. When we notice something about ourselves that is counter to our familiar script, we push it aside, or bury it somewhere deep within us. We get shocked. Surprised. We can even act hatefully (or violently) toward others in the world who have the qualities we ourselves have denied or repressed.
In that sense, wherever we are on the spectrum, we can say, "I don't think I know me as well as I thought I did." Some of our behavior will rise up to surprise us. We will scratch our heads and say, "Where did THAT thought come from?"
Blessed is the woman, blessed is the man, who can hold together both their light AND their darkness . . . who knows with a deep, inner knowing, that they are not fully either one ("either/or") but that they are both ("both/and").
I love the Eddie from Ohio song. It makes me smile. And reminds me that I never know myself as well as I think I do.
The song rehearses a litany of ways the songwriter lives a "responsible" and upstanding life . . . faithfulness to dog and spouse . . . paying utilities (mostly on time) . . . mowing the lawn on Saturdays . . . believing in Jesus' words . . . saying prayers . . . attending the church on the hill . . . looking both ways at stop-signs . . . going on family picnics.
But then, with tongue planted in cheek, the writer records some very surprising things he has done . . . stealing a car for a joyride . . . taking a neighbor's Harley . . . driving the Harley through the potluck line at the family picnic . . . you get the drift.
The chorus, then, is the repetition of this refrain:
I don't think I know me
as well as I thought I did
I don't think I know me
like I thought I did
Couldn't any of us sing this refrain? Don't we all live under some kind of illusion about the kind of person we are?
You may live out of an interior script that says, "I'm terrible. I'm a failure. I'm a moral wreck. My life is a disaster. I'm a worm . . . a wretched sinner." And then you tell yourself -- and others -- stories that support this version of yourself. Sometimes, we even find that others want to confirm this view of us . . . family members, the Church, the educational system. All you know of yourself is that you are a mess.
Or you may live more out of an interior conversation that says, "I am responsible. I do the right thing. I am loyal and hard-working. I am successful. I follow the rules." So you, too, find stories about yourself that support this particular version of your selfhood. You work hard to appear successful, moral, and law-abiding, whether you truly are or not.
Most of us, then, hold either our shadow/darkness or our light. When we notice something about ourselves that is counter to our familiar script, we push it aside, or bury it somewhere deep within us. We get shocked. Surprised. We can even act hatefully (or violently) toward others in the world who have the qualities we ourselves have denied or repressed.
In that sense, wherever we are on the spectrum, we can say, "I don't think I know me as well as I thought I did." Some of our behavior will rise up to surprise us. We will scratch our heads and say, "Where did THAT thought come from?"
Blessed is the woman, blessed is the man, who can hold together both their light AND their darkness . . . who knows with a deep, inner knowing, that they are not fully either one ("either/or") but that they are both ("both/and").
I love the Eddie from Ohio song. It makes me smile. And reminds me that I never know myself as well as I think I do.
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