Falling Upward, Revised and Updated: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
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“We are only the light bulbs, Richard, and our job is just to remain screwed in!”
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The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it.
Bj Wysoske liked this
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None of us go into our spiritual maturity completely of our own accord or by a totally free choice. We are led by Mystery, which religious people rightly call grace.
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The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, and suffering have to give us a push—usually a big one—or we will not go. Someone has to make clear to us that homes are not meant to be lived in, but only to be moved out from.
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Thomas Merton (1915–1968), the American monk, pointed out that we may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to find, when we get to the top, that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
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It is the spiritual equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics: everything winds down unless some outside force winds it back up.
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We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.
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The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling or changing or dying.
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Ernest Becker (1924–1974) wrote some years ago that it is not love but “the denial of death”2 that might well make the world go round. What if he is right?
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Remember, the opposite of rational is not always irrational. It can also be transrational, or bigger than the rational mind can process. Things like love, death, suffering, God, and infinity are transrational experiences.
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is often when the ego is most deconstructed that we can hear things anew and begin some honest reconstruction, even if it is only half heard and halfhearted.
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The whole story is set in the matrix of seeking to find home and then to return there, thus refining and defining what home really is. Home is both the beginning and the end. Home is not a sentimental concept at all, but an inner compass and a North Star at the same time. It is a metaphor for the soul.
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“What makes me significant?” “How can I support myself?”
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“Who will go with me?”
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The very unfortunate result of this preoccupation with order, control, safety, pleasure, and certitude is that a high percentage of people never get to the contents of their own lives! Human life is about more than building boundaries, protecting identities, creating tribes, and teaching impulse control. As Jesus said, “Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will wear.” He then asks, “Is life not so much more than food? Is life not so much more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25). “What will it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your very soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
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“When we victorious are, it is over small things, and though we won, it leaves us feeling small.”