Outside the Box

Helen Jaeger died on the evening of July 3^rd, 1999. Her apartment was located on the 23^rd floor of an elderly high rise in St. Paul Minnesota. She wasn't much to look at – five foot four inches tall – squat in build – grey hair - a life-long United Methodist lay person. Yet this physical description hardly does her justice; for she was a woman who lived with Soul.

In the '50's, my wife Jean's mom spoke with youth about the dangers of drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. She carried her “Johnnie Smoker” into high schools demonstrating how tars from cigarette smoke collect in the lungs. She asked students in her youth group to sign a yearly abstinence pledge. Some of her church friends saw her as a bit strange and a kook.

During the '60's and '70's she joined the anti-war movement. She was one of those “little old ladies in tennis shoes” who marched on the pentagon to protest US involvement in Viet Nam. Although she had only a high school education, she invited university students and college professors into her home to explore their understanding of global politics and spirituality. For these activities she was branded a radical and a subversive.

During the '80's she became involved with meditation movements. She was particularly interested in the writings of Edgar Casey, the psychic and medical clairvoyant. She was fascinated by the possibility that we are reincarnating beings. Once again, her beliefs and actions put her outside the norms of her religious community.

Helen died from congestive heart failure. Yet, two days before her death she sat in her bed and welcomed friends who asked her to pray for them. She saw her dying as a transition into another life experience. Her last words were, “Wow!”

Helen's life was shaped by her spirituality. She didn't fit the definition of a United Methodist church lady. Nor did she fit the norm of a white, middle class homemaker. Helen lived outside the box. She lived with soul.

Siddartha Gautama (Buddha) also lived outside the box. He abandoned his wife and young child as he wandered beyond his father's royal compound on his search for enlightenment. He rejected a life of wealth and power and became an itinerant teacher, the founder of a major spiritual tradition. He lived with soul.

Jesus too lived outside the box. He violated the Sabbath law by working on this holy day. When challenged, he said that the Sabbath was made for humans and not humans for the Sabbath. He taught that the Human Being is lord even of the Sabbath. Yet according to an ancient text of Luke 6:4 (Codex Bezae) he couples this statement with a caution, saying to a man who was working on the Sabbath, “Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you don't know what you are doing, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law.”

Living with Soul - living outside the box - is a risky enterprise. Those who engage their deep humanity live with a kind of freedom and personal authority that may be interpreted as sacrilegious or even immoral. Yet our motivations are extremely important. It is possible to live outside the box in rebellion against the dominant culture or out of personal arrogance. This kind of living lacks Soul and ultimately proves counterproductive and destructive. Soulful living is living that is intimately connected to our deep humanity.

Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way in a sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on March 29^th, 1959: “There are three groups of people in the world....(the) lawless people...who break laws,...(the) law-abiding people whose standards of conduct come from...the law written on the book, or the customs and mores of society...(and a) third group...who are committed to an inner law, those people who have an interior criteria of conduct...who are obedient to something that the law without could never demand...”

Helen Jaeger was part of this third group of people. She was guided by an inner criteria of conduct. She believed that it was her role to live the way of love, honoring people for who they were, even when they disagreed with her and thought her weird. Our culture needs more people who live with Soul.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

It's January 3^rd and the Christmas/New Year holidays have passed. I'm entering the cold months of winter feeling somewhat let down. I didn't accomplished as much as I had hoped I would in 2010. The world feels way too complex and out of control.

Usually, I don't make New Year's resolutions because I feel they lay unrealistic expectations on me. Yet I have an uncanny ability to criticize myself for lack of accomplishments even when the goals to be accomplished are unstated. It's as if I stand outside myself and objectify Chuck Pfeifer as something that needs to be fixed or improved. In this way I demean myself from the outside, never getting to know the Chuck Pfeifer on the inside.

Meanwhile the inner Chuck Pfeifer stands before this judgement uncertain and afraid. Through the years, I have developed a wonderful mechanism for dealing with this fear of internalized judgement. I escape into my head. I theorize about about the effects of the past on my present situation. I analyze social processes, and make lists of things I should do to contribute to the betterment of humankind.

By immersing myself in the midst of all of this activity, I avoid the scary feelings that threaten to undo me. As my self imposed judgements increase, I feel overloaded and despairing. I flee further from my feelings. I engage in compulsive and unproductive behaviors that fail to address the void in myself that I am trying to fill. I become the helper and fixer of myself and others, but from a distance.

It's hard for me to be with people without trying to help them or fix them. It is harder still to be with myself in the midst of my confusion and despair. As a result, I don't really know myself from the inside out. Furthermore, I don't really know and connect deeply with other people.

This new year, I'm trying to risk this scary kind of knowing which comes from being with my feelings. I'm trying to experience those parts of myself of which I'm ashamed as well as those parts which I admire. I'm trying to experience the scary feelings without going into my head. I'm trying to know Chuck Pfeifer from the inside out. If I practice standing in these vulnerable places with myself, perhaps I can relate to others from the inside out as well.

Anthony de Mello says, “You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. If you wish to see them as they are you must attend to your attachments and the fears that your attachments generate. Because when you look at life it is these attachments and fears that will decide what you will notice and what you block out. Whatever you notice then commands your attention. And since your looking has been selective you have an illusory version of the things and people around you. The more you live with this distorted version the more you become convinced that it is the only true picture of the world because your attachments and fears continue to process incoming data in a way that will reinforce your picture.” (from The Way to Love)

I'm beginning to believe that Living With Soul requires facing my fears, attachments and prejudgements honestly and openly. For me this means risking. It means engaging myself and others undefended. It means having the courage to face dying in it's many forms as an entree to living. Perhaps this is my New Year's Resolution for 2011.