The fingerprints of the divine are all over my life, or that’s how I perceive it; I see it now like a light has been switched on – nudging all over the place, pointing, raising me at the right moments. I don’t even know if I have ‘got anywhere’ as such in terms of material success or whatever, but it doesn’t seem to matter a great deal, because the treasure, the real treasure is unearthing what is already present and available to us, all the time, every day. Looking backwards, this is about joining the dots that we find if we look in the cracks, not on the shiny exterior. This seems totally counter-intuitive, that somewhere in the dramatic falls, u-turns, and messy improvisations, an extraordinary grace is at work, all the time. A hidden glue that knows exactly where we are at, and where we have been. Peel back the layers and we find it. I’m resisting becoming overly conceptual or theological at this point, just because I think it would ruin the tone – even though there are very deep truths of this sort running along at a deeper than the existential inside all of this, truths that give some primal and loving ground to our human experience, our story and so on.
There are certain moments in our lives when we fall so hard that we think there is no bottom, and somehow we land in something soft, not something hard and dark. There are times if extraordinary joy and wonder that come to an end, and we cannot make sense of it, because this generates sorrow. And so somehow joy and sorrow walk together for the whole of our lives and become stitched into the tapestry. There are people who come along who transform our consciousness about who we are and what the world is. There are people who, against the odds, stick with us whilst we move through growing pains into the people we already are, and are being called to be. There are people are solid, immovable, dependable- literally like the mountains. People who point out beauty the we have never seen ‘out there’, and also ‘in here’. People who say six words in a business meeting without even thinking about it and the scales fall from our eyes. People who dedicate themselves to catching others. It’s overwhelming – and most of the time, they are just being themselves; they are are just made beautiful and are totally unaware of it. Most of the time these days, I pray that I can be one of these sorts of people.
What is extraordinary in our culture is that we, and men particular, at an early age are persuaded that they should need no-one, in order to grow up and be ‘strong’. What comes as a huge shock (and we don’t often really know what to do with it) is that the reality of the situation is banging at at our door the whole time is that without others, we are totally screwed. This is frankly a bit of a pain for the ego, but unless we embrace this reality, we are never going to fully grow into the person we are and need to become. This is a profound move of humility, and of gratitude, and of grace. It goes deeper than decisions about life partners, as significant as this can be. Other than we better make damn sure that if we make these sorts of choices, they are towards another who will help us to acknowledge and embrace ourselves, our weakness as well as our capability – and allow / help us to grow. I’m convinced that very few of us (myself included) have the humility and courage to receive this, and to engage with the deep call towards growth that this sets upon us. Certainly my own tendency would be to interpret this sort of call as a request for a better performance in some area. This a kind of managerial mindset – I think we are just conditioned to make this sort of interpretation – to try to change our performance to meet expectations. I don’t even think that this movement I am experiencing now about is about becoming more emotional – it’s just being about becoming more humble, more self-accepting, more in awe of others, humanities capacity to stumble about blindly looking for something we already possess. This is an emotional, existential and spiritual opportunity. To engage with the present and the past, and our place in the world. – and of course our possible future. One of the major challenges that I think we face is the fact that the longer one lives, the harder it gets to allow any serious personal revolution to take place….but at the same time, the more important personal revolution gets! The stakes get higher – what if I have built on such shaky ground that I discover that somehow I have ended up in the ‘wrong’ place? Or lived a life or self whose foundations are fatally flawed? I have a limited lifespan, I’m not going to be around for ever, and so…how do I then know what sorts of things to do with what remains of my time here? So…this is the mid-life thing. The urgency of serious re-appraisal, and the threat to the sense of ‘self and purpose’ that has propelled us thus far.
This is just what arrives at this stage of life, and it stands at the door and knocks, and waits, and knocks, and waits. And knocks and waits.
At some point we will get up, walk away from the apparent importance of the tasks that consume us and open the door.
Or not.