A pop artist’s search

[some liberty with an artist’s creation]

I’ve been searching for something sacred I lost, taken out of my soul. We all start in the streams, we’re all carried along, through the desert of truth, we all end in the ocean. I don’t know why I go walking at night; now I’m tired and I don’t want to walk anymore. I hope it doesn’t take the rest of my life until I find what I’ve been looking for. I’m not sure about a life after this; God knows I’ve never been a spiritual man. I know I’m searching for something so undefined that it can only be seen by the eyes of the blind. Something I’d never lose, somebody stole.

Source: Surprise! Official. | Live, release tour. | Live, more contemporary (15 yrs later), electric spontaneity.

Pandemic Prophecies

A wholly secular, scientific viral TED talk by an epidemiologist (here) notes that more pandemics lie ahead, and a dimension of essential preparedness is the fortification of healthcare systems in under-developed nations by aid from the wealthier “unto the least of our brethren,” five years after Bill Gates’ prophetic TED Talk was preceded by more than a decade with the warning of Stan Lee’s Spider-Man that, “With great power comes great responsibility” (Uncle Ben, or another, or centuries earlier). Then there’s the all-time best-seller, millennia earlier:

When I was sick, you visited me.
Whatsoever you do to the least of my people,
That you do unto me.
Now enter into the home of my father.

That amalgamation comes from the song below, which was inspired by verses 31 ff of Mt 25, the chapter before The Passion begins (fuller verses below song material):

‘For I was sick and you visited me’… ‘Lord, when did we see thee sick and visit thee?’ ‘Truly, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’*

Whatsoever You Do

(below lyrics to this song by Willard “Fr. Bill” Jabusch [1930-2018] are links to various online videos of it. See also)

When I was hungry you gave me to eat
When I was thirsty you gave me to drink
When I was homless you opened your door
When I was naked you gave me your coat
When I was weary you helped me find rest
When I was anxious you helped calm all my fears
When I was laughed at you stood by my side
When I was happy you shared in my joy
Now enter into the home of my father
Whatsoever you do to the least of my people
That you do unto me

Professionally recorded children’s choir + adult female soloist

Professionally recorded male vocalist, piano + acoustic guitar

S. Sudanese childrens chorus and men, a cappella + percussion

Professional instrumental-only

Ecclesial organ choir bootleg

Contemporary instrumentation, male soloist

A humble and simple version

Ecclesial bootleg

Contemporary male choir

Matthew 25:31-end(46), the chapter of Mt before The Passion begins.

34… ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for…36… I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37…’Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? 38 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? 39 And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ 40… ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’*

Excerpted from:

31 “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. 34 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? 38 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? 39 And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’*

* Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic (or Ignatius) Edition (RSV-2CE), online.

Abba’s Spark. Alchemy: Ego, Soul, Self

[3 minute read]

Sometimes a Self must be *forced* to surrender its ego to its soul, to ‘widen’ the Self, alchemically integrating the false and True Self. Sages say it is not only some, but all selves which must go this Way. Many may not experience this humility until passage from this world.

We fear most what we understand least–the dimensions of our Self which we have repressed into our Shadow. Our unconscious. Darkness within. So into and within that darkness must we wander to find the missing pieces of our whole Self. There we strain our vision, and the gentler eyes of the soul can behold our repressed flaws in mercy. There in the dark night, we develop and practice seeing with the soul’s eyes. And those developing eyes can then also look out upon the world with mercy.

What egos fear most is their own respective darkness. Their Shadows. We fear and poorly understand God. Particularly the unconditionality of God’s love for us. Thanks a lot, shame:) The soul is a part of us forever willing to embrace its ego without conditions, without judging our mistakes too harshly–understanding that they are a consequence of our ego’s narrow vision, and our attempts to demystify mystery.

A wider understanding of God awaits in the darkness of our unconscious Shadow. By a larger way of “knowing,” we actually already know that: The Way of the soul, with which we can behold our full Self and the world with more divine eyes–a profound Way of “knowing” God better, by shared perspective with God. Seeing our selves more like God sees us.

Our unconscious is still part of us. Our unconscious still holds self knowledge. The self “knows” this narrowly, including in the ego’s familiar way of knowing in the conscious mind. This is why psychology urges us to pay attention to our emotions. They are a dialogue and conduit between the conscious ego-mind and our unconscious. To restore the full Self, that dialog and conduit must widen.

How would I say my “psyche has changed or evolved or developed or grown?” By widening my self’s vision, better seeing the “small things of this day” which Yahweh “created me for”; better seeing “abundance.” Better soul-vision.

“This awareness seems to have had to widen for me to have an authentically humble confidence that I’ve been transformed into a person incapable of inflicting those kinds of suffering any longer.” (More…)

I cannot transform what I cannot see. I can more deliberately cultivate the requisite soul-vision in a deep-rest state, where my inner dialogs are moving more slowly, so I can be less fearful when I bump into my flaws in the darkness.

Seeing my Self more clearly seems essential to transformation, for without attending to that brutally slow process, the ego tempts my Self to stray. The courage to keep my soul-eyes open comes from cultivating faith that the journey is in progress. The en-courage-ment from an archetypal Father is within: Abba’s spark.

Befriending One’s Soul

[3 minute read]

“The ego sees by the eyes of the head, but the soul by the ‘I’ of the heart.“
– Neil D 🙂
Facebook – in a tap – makes it easy to share a year-old post on the same day this year. I did that for my prayer below, and my HSP sister challenged me about any differences the year made:

Sistah, your question is a wonderful challenge to my impatience—a reminder that substantive transformations are gradual, like the tempo of the minute-hand: Imperceptible in a moment; clear only by glances at sufficient intervals. That’s echoed in the opening remarks of this highly popular TED Talk “How to Grow as a Person (And Why It Sucks)“:

“Personal growth is tricky. The term growth implies millions of tiny thankless steps. Which sucks. And the term personal implies that no one can take them for you. Which also sucks. But…if we resist the urge to judge ourselves for how long this process takes, we won’t waste our lives waiting around for a eureka moment that may never come.“

Of your options, Sistah, I choose “grown”— a homophone of “groan.” I like homonym word-play, like describing a “depressed state” as a “deep-rest” state, in My love letter to you. There, also I rejected growth in my darkness as any “deepening” in depression—instead favoring a “widening,” into an expanse. I like the idea of a widening groan, versus a deepening gulp or wail. Larger, not deeper. Horizontal dances, not vertical descents.

A long-winded answer to your question, Sistah, came by inspiration 2 days after your challenge, in which the rest in deep-rest was exp-rest by a favored author:

“Enlightened people invariably describe the spiritual experience of God as resting… Peace within…is the only resting place that also allows us to bear the silver lining in the darkest of life’s clouds… (We give and get our energy from dark clouds much more than silver linings… True joy is harder to hold onto than anger or fear…) If our soul is at rest…we can bear the hardness of life…“
[snippets from Poetic prose on rest, from Rohr]

Sistah, this is word-wrestling, like your question. I think that’s an epic contest, not trivial at all. I’d say my widening groan has been a story of befriending…

Friends: Ego and Soul

The soul seeks notice by the narrow vision of one’s ego-eyes, so that it can lovingly serve its ego.

The soul’s way is to whisper and coax with mystery, opposing the ego’s loud ways, and its comfort in rational answers.

The soul wants to be chosen volitionally—not by the ego’s way of assertion. It wishes for its ego to turn toward it out of love—the greatest of motives.

The soul can endure a deep-rest dark night and wait patiently in the Shadow, as the inflated ego deflates itself by its own ways.

Once ego befriends its soul,
the Self is re-made whole
and can last by virtue of
its own eternal soul.
– Neil D.

While the Self is following the ego’s way, we fear and repress God— angered by the human condition dealt us.

But our Maker (evolution + society, if you prefer) fashioned our ego with built-in potential to burn itself out, so that out of that despair, the Self would turn to the only light which remains in the darkness: The soft divine spark within.

The soul.

(continued in Abba’s Spark. Alchemy: Ego, Soul, Self)

Poetic prose on rest, from Rohr

Snippets of these excerpts are used in Befriending One’s Soul, because they inspired my response to my Sistah’s wonderful challenge.

Life is hard, and yet Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28).

It is hard to bear God—but it is even harder not to bear God. The pain one brings upon oneself by living outside of evident reality is a greater and longer-lasting pain than the brief pain of facing it head on. Enlightened people invariably describe the spiritual experience of God as resting […]

[…] If our religion is primarily fear of self, the world, and God; if it is primarily focused on meeting religious duties and obligations, then it is indeed a hard yoke and heavy burden.[…] rigid and humorless religion is not his way […]

[…] seek joy in God and peace within; seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is the only resting place that also allows us to bear the darkness. Hard and soft, difficult and easy, pain and ecstasy do not eliminate one another, but actually allow each other. They bow back and forth like dancers, although it is harder to bow to pain and to failure. If you look deeply inside every success, there are already seeds and signs of limits; if you look inside every failure, there are also seeds and signs of opportunity.

Who among us has not been able to eventually recognize the silver lining in the darkest of life’s clouds? You would think the universal pattern of death and life, the lesson of the Gospel and Jesus’ life would be utterly clear to me by now, yet I still fight and repress my would-be resurrections, even if just in my own mind. For some reason, we give and get our energy from dark clouds much more than silver linings. True joy is harder to access and even harder to hold onto than anger or fear. […]

If our soul is at rest in the comforting sweetness and softness of God, we can bear the hardness of life and see through failure. That’s why people in love—and often people at the end of life—have such an excess of energy for others. If our truth does not set us free, it is not truth at all. If God cannot be rested in, God must not be much of a God.[…]

From:
My Yoke Is Easy and My Burden Is Light (Monday,  April 6, 2020) [Richard Rohr]

Snippets of these excerpts are used in Befriending One’s Soul, because they inspired my response to my Sistah’s wonderful challenge.

Soul Therapy, part 3 of 3

[5 minute read]

[Descriptions of the 3 parts, and links to the other 2]

I have a passionate personality. One which psychology labels as “borderline tendencies.” My ego soars to unhealthy heights fueled by my self-perceptions as brilliant:-) Then I “cut” myself (figuratively), and knock myself off my pedestal into depressive lows by self judgment.

I have dys-coped with these overwhelms by multiple addictions. I will resist this vocabulary from now on. And I therefore also resist recommendations for pills and anti-depression therapy. To my mind and soul right now, these are yet-other means of repression, avoidance, and escapism. They have made me even more ill in the past. This is my personal choice, not a judgment meant to extend beyond the boundaries of my own Self.

My soul is passionate, and does not want to be subdued. And of course it also does not want to suffer the consequences of my dysregulation, but it is encouraging me to embrace my passion rather than regulate it. Psychotherapy that I have been fortunate to find has cultivated within me a habit of self-awareness about my passions being triggered. I think that is a key factor in reacquainting my conscious ego-mind with my transcendent soul.

My soul is coaxing me to cherish even the dark dimensions of itself, and view them as the other side of a coin, opposite Light. Jordan Peterson has his own way of expressing that, involving probing the depths of our own capacity for true evil. That appeals to me. Being “depressed” is a state of “deep-rest” and slow-down so that I can listen better to my larger Self, and nourish my soul.

***

I really like this short TED talk about liberating myself from judgment so that, when triggers rise to my conscious (ahead of dysregulation), I can less fearfully return beyond the gate at the precipice, and pass through it to my soul’s realm where passion is at home and doesn’t threaten relationship with others or my Self:
“What if There’s Nothing Wrong With You“

My reflection on it:

We and shallow symptom-obsessed psychology focus on learning to prevent or avoid the wrongs, which diminishes the value that the wrongs can reveal to us. And to talk about wrongs using the generalized vocabulary of psychology is perilous, because each of us is wrong in our own individual way(s), not in very generalizable ways (that are the dumbing-down trappings of the collectivism Peterson decries).

Our soul is our own best therapist and teacher because it knows our specifics even better than our smaller conscious intellects. The soul is where our wrongs have deep, deep value. And I’ve come to believe that wandering around in our own soul is the only place where that value can be seen for its fullness and depth.

For a passionate person with borderline tendencies, I am completely normal! [I don’t mean to trivialize the seriousness of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD); I have tendencies of BPD, but I am not “on that spectrum.”] And a narcissist is entirely normal among people with narcissism. And people-pleasers are entirely normal among people-pleasers.

Pathologizing is homogenizing, which is another way of recognizing our prevailing culture’s tendencies toward making the individual subordinate to the collective.

I abhor the Trump mindset, but, if you do too, it might be revealing for you to think about the large portion of the population that elected him. Are his electors his personal fans, or are they expressing their feelings of threats to their individuality and autonomy?

Peterson quotes Churchhill about democracy as a terrible form of government, but less terrible than alternatives.

Why is democracy a terrible form of government? It has built-in, by necessity, a tendency to collectivize, which is always a tendency to suppress individuality and the value of autonomous persons (see the Peterson interview). That is the paradox that astounds Peterson so that he notes the unlikelihood of our not being at each other’s throats (the recurring thread in human history). Democratic government requires a constant paradoxical dynamic: Collective freedom is a threat to individual freedom. And, of course, the converse.

***

For me and my Borderline tendencies, this brief video was interesting: Jordan Peterson – Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) [Jul 27, 2017]. Here’s an expanded one by a different guy: Embracing Borderline Personality Disorder – Dr Keith Gaynor [Oct 23, 2013].

My Love Style is Vacillator, which is a gentler way of saying I have Borderline tendencies. Intelligent and capable of intellectually recognizing a rational growth plan, but weak at following it. I was encouraged to look into a DBT (Dialectic Behavioral Therapy) program – the only respected help for borderlines – but there are sadly few in the country, let alone locally. I reviewed DBT material myself, and in my mind, these are useful tools, and seem to me clearly to be aimed at exploring my soul. For a whispy intro to what “soul” is (most of us today have a truly and tragically small understanding of this classic notion), The real meaning of soul | Lesley Hazleton [Dec 5, 2016] is wonderful, and she uses much the same language of my favorite source (farther below, Thomas Moore)

Today’s leading authority on the soul – more contemporary than Jung or Renaissance authors or the ancient Greeks or mystic saints – is Thomas Moore. His famous book “Care of the Soul” is spread across 2 free YouTube videos (audio only) about 6 hours each – youch – but nothing compares if you’re genuinely committed to understanding and nurturing your soul. And if you want another book more mired in neuro-psychology and explicit Christianity (Moore’s writings are more universal), try “Anatomy of the Soul” (can lend my copy).

I believe it is chiefly shame which keeps the conscious mind/ego from embracing awareness that its larger container is the friendlier and gentler and quieter soul. I’m therefore fond of famed shame researcher Brené Brown (here’s my condensation of her most popular blog) and contemporary Franciscan mystic Richard Rohr.