After worship on Sundays, Sabbath for me is a time of reflection. It is a time to read, or nap if need be. It is a time to intentionally prepare a Sunday meal and to enjoy the quiet of the evening.
One of the joys of living in the country is the lack of artificial light; in fact, when darkness falls you have to provide your own source of illumination. In turning on the porch light last evening, as if caught in the blare of oncoming headlights I found myself mesmerized by the still falling snow. The flakes appeared to be caught up in a dance. Slow, graceful pirouettes which, with each little gust of wind, would evolve into a group jeté. Then, suddenly, the stage would clear and a new ensemble of snowflake dancers would crowd into the spotlight. “Wow” thought I. A dance of life unfolding before me; times of slow falling, times of spinning (sometimes out of control), times of leaping with joy, times of emptiness and waiting, times of settling onto the earth below.
Serendipitously this morning, on opening my daily meditation from Richard Rohr, the following appeared. It is just too good not to share it. It is about life in two parts; it is about the dance we live as we move from act one into act two. I hope you enjoy his thoughts as much as I did today, with the snow still softly falling onto the cedars outside my office window.
In his talk Loving the Two Halves of Life, Richard describes the questions we focus on in the first half of life:
I first read the phrase “first half of life” in the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875−1971) years ago. It made sense to me then, but I probably was too young at that point to recognize how true it would eventually become. In short—and this is my layperson’s interpretation of Carl Jung—he would say that the first half of life is the task that we think is our primary task. The second half of life is really the task within the task that a lot of people never get to because they’re so preoccupied with the first task, which is all about making money, getting an education, raising children, and paying a mortgage. It’s about tradition, law, structure, authority, and identity. It’s about why I’m significant, why I’m important, why I matter, why I’m good.
Most of us are so invested in these first-half-of-life tasks by the age of forty that we can’t imagine there’s anything more to life. But if we stay there, it remains all about me. How can I be important? How can I be safe? How can I be significant? How can I make money? How can I look good? And how can I die a happy death and go to heaven? Religion itself becomes an evacuation plan for the next life, as my friend and colleague Brian McLaren says, because we don’t see much happening of depth or significance in this world. It largely remains a matter of survival.
I’m sad to say, after fifty-five years as a priest, I think a lot of Christians have never moved beyond survival questions, security questions, even securing their future in eternity. First-half-of-life religion is an insurance plan to ensure that future. In this stage, any sense of being a part of a cosmos, of being part of a historical sweep, that God is doing something bigger and better and larger than simply saving individual souls (and my own soul in particular) is largely of no interest to us. I don’t think I’m exaggerating. That’s all the first half of life can do.
It’s clear that if someone wants to be elected to a political office in the United States or any country, all they need to do is assure people of safety. Bill Plotkin, who’s been such a wonderful influence on so many people in recent decades, speaks of the first half of life as our survival dance, and the second half of life as our sacred dance. [1] Most people never get beyond their survival dance. It’s just identity questions, boundary questions, superiority questions, and security questions. We would call them ego questions, but they’re not questions of the soul.
The soul moves beyond questions of security and importance because it has discovered that it is absolutely important.
In closing, I am reminded of a favourite hymn, played at my mom’s funeral.
Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he
God is the perfect dance partner if we learn to listen and follow God’s lead. So, may your heart be always filled with music and your feet never stray from the beat.
In peace
Pastor Beryl, DLM
[1] Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2003), 84–85.