Continued from the previous post.
Here is the truth about me, as I’ve gotten older:
I’m a little meaner, for sure.
I’ve also become more introverted, and prefer to spend time alone or with my family rather than being with people all the time.
Also, I am much more skeptical – about matters of faith, about people’s motives, about believing anyone who clings too tightly to their claims on truth.
I’m not so shocked and disappointed by the sins of humanity. We’re all broken, and we’re all forgiven. End of story.
I am much more accepting of what some great authors have called the “shadow” side of myself, riding those monsters all the way down, rather than running away from them. As Parker Palmer puts it, “There is no way out of my inner life, so I better get into it.”
Darkness, and all. The only way out, is through. Besides, I highly doubt God is surprised by these things. I sometimes wonder if he does anything more than roll his eyes in response to the majority of our shame and self-loathing.
“You screwed up – so what?” I can hear him say in frustration, as he gets up to go check on another, more promising, universe. “Can’t you people just forgive yourselves and get on with your lives?”
You may read this and think my soul is deteriorating. On the contrary. I believe these are healthy signs of life, of soul-development, of becoming more connected, more reflective, reaching out beyond the limits and constraints of one’s small world.
For instance, I’ve become much more expansive in many ways. I have a greater sense of mystery and awe. I have become settled with the not-knowing, with the ambiguity of paradox, accepting the limits and the liberation it brings. I appreciate beauty more than I have ever before, and find myself literally shouting for joy at a sunset, or a mountainous landscape, in beholding the perfect formation of a leaf on a tree, or taking that first sip of coffee in the morning.
I have discovered that God is much, much grander and all-encompassing than the egocentric version I had developed in early adulthood.
There are things we gain and there are things we lose on the journey of growing older, I suppose. But what choice do we have? It’s not like time knocks quietly on the door and asks for permission to come in. No, it barges in and sets up house, so you better make friends with it.
The other day my mother observed that, at the heart, I am exactly the same person now, at age 52, as when I was four years old. I agreed. So I guess I haven’t changed so much after all. Perhaps we are all only growing in circles, orbiting our souls, ultimately coming back around to who we really are, who we always were.