Thursday, December 23, 2010

CONNECTEDNESS


Jean and I just returned to Madison from an early Christmas celebration in Boston with Rebecca and Dan, our daughter and son-in-law. Son, Timothy, drove up from New York City to be with us as well. Even as I enjoyed the time with our children, I experienced a strange sense of impending loss. I knew that we would soon be apart again because Madison is a long way from Boston and New York City.

During our visit, Dan's dad shared a quote with me from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that helped me understand these feelings. Bonhoeffer said, God doesn’t fill the gaps, but, on the contrary, he keeps them empty, and so helps us keep alive our communion with each other, even at the expense of pain.”

Bonhoeffer nailed it for me. Even when I was with those I loved, I was aware that soon, we would not be together. We would be separated by the twelve hundred mile gap between our homes. I was also aware that I was separated in time from those who had died – my parents, Jean's parents, a brother, a nephew, a dear friend and many others.

Bonhoeffer's words helped me appreciate this Christmas in a different way. All of our times together are tinged with an aura of empty gaps, of past and future losses. Our times together are transient by their very nature. Even our lives are transient. This year I am less concerned with giving or receiving that perfect gift, even though I love to give and receive gifts. I am less concerned that every interaction be Brady Bunch perfect. I really want to experience each moment as it comes.

I also want to stay connected with those who are no longer living. During my walk this morning I reviewed Christmases past. I smiled as I remembered the year my mother gave me my Lionel train set. My uncle had mounted the tracks on a piece of plywood set up on saw horses in the basement. It was the most wonderful gift I could imagine. I thought of the gatherings with aunts and uncles and cousins where Santa Clause visited our house and brought us presents. I still remember the sound of the reindeer hooves on the roof. I also remember the Christmas we got the call that my mother had had a heart attack while shoveling her sidewalk. We dropped everything and drove the three and a half hours to be with her.

For me, this is all related to living with Soul. It's a deeper kind of living - living with fewer false fronts and pretenses, living into my true essence. There is an honesty in this type of living that allows me to face my limitations and vulnerabilities. This honesty also allows me to accept the faults and foibles of others because I don't want to see their pretenses. I want to know them as they really are.

Bonhoeffer is right. It's painful to live in the unfilled gaps of time and space. He is also right in saying that living with the pain of the gaps helps us keep alive our communion with each other, our connectedness.

I wish you a joyful holiday season as you experience the pain of loss and the joy of connectedness.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Vulnerability


I walked the trail at Holy Wisdom Monastery again today. It had snowed heavily over the weekend so the Oak grove at the top of the hill was nearly monochrome – dark trunks - white forest floor. The day was cloudy and bitter cold. The wind stung my face.

I headed down the hill to Lost Lake. It was frozen over and covered with snow. I walked to the far side of the lake where the body of the raccoon lay. He was barely visible, a white mound on the snow. His little face rested on the ice, looking as if he had pulled a soft white blanket up around his shoulders.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I felt the vulnerability of this little animal. Yet it wasn't the raccoon's vulnerability I was feeling. It was my own vulnerability. I was tempted to scurry away from these scary emotions, back to the safety of my thoughts. “It's just a body.” “It is only a corpse.” “Soon it will decay and return to the earth.” I wanted to depersonalize this event so it wouldn't hurt so much.

Yet, I knew that running from my feelings wouldn't work. If I avoided facing the fear of my own vulnerability, my own mortality, this fear would continue to hold sway over me. So I stayed in the presence of my feelings of sadness and fear. I wrestled with this demon.

I was tempted a second time to flee to a safer space. “I will think of people who are ill.” “I will grieve the suffering inflicted on people through war, calamity and poverty.” Yet this wasn't good enough either. There was grief but no empathy. I realized that I must face my own vulnerability before I could authentically engage the vulnerability of others.

Matthew Fox says, “Grief work is a big part of soul work.” “It helps us accept all our emotions and feelings, including anger and sorrow.” “Everything that is encouraging, no matter how difficult or trying, nourishes the soul.” “For all of us, it's a question of living and being alive.”

I want to be more fully alive. I want to engage soul - my soul and the cosmic soul. Yet, I fear my vulnerable feelings because I have not yet come to terms with my own mortality. It's a strange irony that this little animal, in its dying, has allowed me to take a step in that direction.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Sadness


Yesterday I walked the grounds at Holy Wisdom Monastery. It was cold as I followed a trail through a stand of Oak on top of a small hill. Since we've had no snow, the dark branches of the trees stood out in sharp contrast to the carpet of brown leaves on the ground and the wheat colored grasses of the prairie beyond.

I followed the trail through the trees and down toward Lost Lake. Tall stalks of frozen prairie flowers bordered the lake, standing in mute reminder of their former summer beauty. I noticed the partly frozen lake as I circled it and entered an open space with more wheat colored prairie grass.

The property around Holy Wisdom Monastery is a kind of nature preserve. I have seen wild turkeys running through the trees and even a deer or two. This day I came upon a fluffy raccoon walking on the ice of the partially frozen lake. He seemed not to notice me as he carefully placed one paw in front of the other. His flanks heaved as if he was having trouble breathing. It seemed to take all of his concentration to navigate the ice.

I paused, concerned for his safety, and then moved on.

I thought about that little animal today. Again I was walking the trail. Again it was bitterly cold. Again I descended the hill toward Lost Lake. Even from a distance I could see a dark form on the ice sheet. I approached, fearing what I knew awaited me. There on the ice, near where I had left him yesterday, lay the body of this little creature. He was still fluffy. His head rested on the ice as if he were asleep. His ringed tail stretched out behind him.

My eyes glistened with tears as I honored the life of this little creature.

Ray Charles said, “Soul is like electricity – we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light up a room.” Soul is also a force that allows us to grieve for what was and is no more.

Am I more than I think I am?


Welcome to my blog called Living With Soul.

I have spent much of my life seeking to be more than I think I am. When I was younger, I felt I had to excel to be acceptable to myself. As I aged, this drive to be exceptional shifted. I wanted to make the world a better place, particularly for those who were damaged by cultural attitudes and structures. Since I was raised in a religious family, these yearnings were strongly affected by my Lutheran upbringing. I saw myself as striving to please God. My question, “Am I more than I think I am,” was really the question, “What can I do to raise myself from my imperfect state?” “How can I measure up to the heavy demands of God to live like Jesus lived?”

In later years, pleasing God did not fill the bill. In fact, my whole image of God sort of evaporated. Yet the life and teachings of Jesus continued to motivate me. Somehow this man was in touch with a spark of life that I found very attractive. I yearned to live my life with the courage and abandon that I saw in him. I wanted to live out my potential as completely as possible. The question, “Am I more than I think I am,” had changed. It became, “How can I grow into my Charles Pfeifer potential?” I no longer yearned to be like Jesus or Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted grow into the real Charles Pfeifer.

Here is where “living with soul” comes in. Ray Charles, credited with the musical sound we call soul, once said, “Soul is like electricity – we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light up a room.” Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (1945-61) said, “Until you know that life is interesting – and find it so - you haven't found your soul.”

I want to engage the source of this electricity?  I want to experience life as so interesting that I just have to live it. Looking at it this way, the question, “Am I more than I think I am?” becomes, “Is my potential as a human being more than I had ever imagined?” If this is so, life is not primarily about achieving. Life is about engaging soul.

This is what I want to explore in this blog site. I invite you to join me.

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