Category Archives: Psychological growth

Being found: Six things we can do to get there

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, Marriage and Family, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction,

I have a love-hate relationship going with my memory of the entry closet of my childhood home. I remember it fondly because it was the first place I was given the privilege of painting (which might have been as soon as I could hold a brush in my situation). So it is symbolically a place where I was trusted and counted worthy.

But before I was painting it, it was a place I would hide. I think one of my earliest  memories is hiding from my mother in the closet and waiting for her to find me. We weren’t playing hide and seek, I just disappeared. And she did not come to find me. I waited for what seemed like a long time in the dark before I peaked out the door. I could hear her voice in the kitchen talking on the land line. I came up to her and pulled on her dress. She looked down at me and did that sweeping up, “Shoo!” gesture and whispered, with her hand over the mouthpiece, “Go play.”  I started to say, “But you did not find me.” But she had already straightened up and was laughing that wonderful laugh of hers. So I just went to my room to look around at the toys again.

I don’t think I ever told her about that. But as you can see, I never forgot that one small moment of being lonely, invisible, and not worth finding. It is no wonder we all seem to have shame sticking to the walls of our inner selves. The tiniest things collect and build up like plaque.

Maybe your mate wants to be found

I thought of myself not long ago when a woman was lamenting how her husband seemed uninterested in “finding” her. She used the word. And she was not the first to do so. So many partnered people have trouble when they feel their partner leaves them alone; they are like babies in the crib who woke up by themselves and aren’t sure someone is coming to get them. We really want our mates to meet us there. It feels like they should do something about this attachment issue that keeps popping up. Some of us might get anxious because we don’t want to risk the possibility that they won’t find us and will never share the deep fears and loneliness we might carry.

I hope you will be found by your loved ones. But I am not counting on it. I hope you will be sensitive enough to find people, even find yourself. But I would not be surprised if you had already blown so many opportunities to do that, you’re not sure you should make any promises.

The movies don’t help. Those people are getting found all the time! We love watching it happen — why else would we watch the Hallmark Channel so religiously? The first example that comes to my mind is “Dear Even Hansen.” That might be because I’ve seen a few choirs of young people giving their hearts to singing the main song: “You Will Be Found.” The hope of being found is apparently a universal feeling, so this song has been sung around the world a few times. The other side of the song is moving, too, so people feel terrible when they realize they didn’t look for someone before they got left alone. The the song has made a lot of people cry.

But I think the song promises too much. You might not be found and need to do something about it yourself. What’s more, everyone might be waiting for you to show up rather than looking for you, or might be kind of paralyzed by the idea you might not want to be found by them, or might not be too aware or even able to notice you’re gone. You might need more than what humans can provide. Wonder about those things as you listen to the song. I provided the lyrics for you.

Have you ever felt like nobody was there?
Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere?
Have you ever felt like you could disappear?
Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

Well, let that lonely feeling wash away
Maybe there’s a reason to believe you’ll be okay
‘Cause when you don’t feel strong enough to stand
You can reach, reach out your hand

And oh, someone will come runnin’
And I know they’ll take you home

Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you’re broken on the ground
You will be found

So let the sun come streamin’ in
‘Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
Lift your head and look around
You will be found

You will be found
You will be found
You will be found
You will be found

The message most people latch onto when they hear Evan Hansen sing is “You are not alone.” For all you people feeling alone even though you are in good relationships, I can say “You are not alone” – maybe you are not together with your loved one the way you wish you were, but there is more than your wishes. And for those of you who didn’t find someone who needed you, you are not alone, either. We all carry a lot of shame, but that doesn’t mean you are alone with it.

What we can do to be found and find

I remember thinking my mother decided not to find me and just left me alone. That hurt. I did not ask her about her motivation, but surely she could not have been unaware I was gone somewhere! – after all, she could hear me stealing candy from the cupboard a mile away! When I finally went out and pulled on her dress and got an irritated, “I’m talking on the phone!” That fact did not undo my feeling.

Your adult loved ones might be just as difficult. Dealing with your mate’s attachment issues can feel perilous, but it is so helpful if you do!  Here are a few things to notice and try if you’d like to feel found and like to feel adept at finding people.

1) See one another. In my opinion, Mom should have put down the phone and given me some loving eye contact. That might have demonstrated I was important and not just a nuisance. Same for mates; they need validation and reassurance.

She also could have kept track of me. It is OK to keep track of your mate; you’re not impinging upon their freedom or losing your own if you do. You might need to negotiate how much closeness and how much distance your relationship needs in order to get to your “happy medium.” But you’ll probably be happier if you try.

I have known a few people who say, “I think I will be happier if I don’t try. That kind of noticing is way too much to ask.” In that case the song would be “You are alone.” Because everyone is working out how to attach their whole life. They at least need to be seen.

2) Be yourself, not God. If someone asks to be seen it does not make you God, as if you could be all-seeing, all knowing and the answer to someone’s prayers. Don’t say “No” because you already think you will fail. Everyone fails. You’re probably good enough, even if you are facing a need in your partner that demands more than you have.

Facing the “demand” is what a lot of people mean when they talk about “showing up.” You stop hiding and risk finding. Just don’t take on all those expectations as if you are responsible to succeed at them. Just keep moving into your true self.

3) Listen. Listening for someone matters. They might be making a distant noise in their closet. If it seems too demanding to be so intense, your heart might need to get bigger. All intimate relationships grow our hearts. For instance, a client assumed his wife was self-reliant, but she was really a person who had to fend for herself because no one else did. She would say how needy she was and then behave like she was not needy. It was easier to relate to the unneedy one. But she was left feeling the ancient feeling of being left alone she hated so much. He learned to listen better and to move into what he heard.

4) Try not to hide. When I expected my mother to find me when she did not have a clue about what I’d decided to to, it was a recipe for not getting what I wanted. Fortunately, I did not hide in the closet every day trying to train her to find me on demand! But it would not be surprising if you and I were stubborn enough to try something like that.

We feel it is unjust to have to change rather than someone else changing. “Others seem to get found, why shouldn’t I be cared for like that?” If we just suffer the injustice of it all, the person who is loving you the best they can becomes someone who just holds out on you, but all the while you’re the one in the closet. It may pain you to do so, but you may need to come out and make yourself known, rather than insisting someone else has to do the work.

5) Make sure someone is listening. It takes quite a bit of humility to ask for what we really want. When you dare to do it, be sure to help the one you’re asking hear you. If I say, “I want to feel found. I want you to see me” in a way they can’t hear, that’s not really their fault. If I am just hurt and angry and I make them seem like a fool or a fiend when I tell them, their defenses will spring into action. Then we won’t be on the subject of what I am really hoping any more. We need to help people hear us now that we are adults. The crib is long gone. Being weak in a strong way is rarely a good  way to get what we need.

6) Be found by God. Jesus is well known for saying he is seeking the lost in order to give them life and joy. So there is ONE person who is interested in finding you. There is a hopeful verse in Jeremiah about this big part of God’s love:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity. — Jeremiah 29:11-14

I love “I will be found of you.” The best way to be found by some one is to be found of them. You are more likely to be found if you let them see you and struggle gracefully with them. To be fair to Evan Hansen, the movie goes on to teach just that. He needs to let himself be known and go through the pain of being accepted as he really is. He gets way down the road to being his true self, as a result.

Artists like the people who made “Dear Evan Hansen” keep coming up with ways to tell the parables of living in love because 80% of us are preoccupied with how to be known and loved and how to know and be loving every day. We’re the sought seekers we were created to be.

Anxious and tired: Meditation that turns us toward hope

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, , , , , , , , , , ,

The notion that God is absent is the
fundamental illusion of the human condition.
— Thomas Keating

“Fundamental illusion” can be a way of life! But it does not have to be that way. Most of the wise people we all admire have a story about how they moved beyond their self-contained understanding to become who they became. Some found a hope deep inside that is vastly better than wishing and waiting for one’s illusions to be validated.

I think the best and deepest way that leads beyond ordinary, self-limited thinking and into hope is the way of meditation. Cynthia Bourgeault, my inspiration for this series, agrees:

Meditation, more than any other spiritual practice, nurtures the latent capacities within us that can perceive and respond to divine hope. In the classic language of our tradition, these capacities are known as the “spiritual senses.”

That little paragraph might have seemed so weird to a few of you, it drove you right back into your egoic thinking! So hang on.

“Egoic thinking” is another way of describing our limited, ordinary awareness. It simply means we humans have the capacity to stand outside ourselves and look at ourselves. As far as we know, we are the only species who can do this. Tigers don’t think, “I have a quick temper.” And whales don’t say, “I am really glad to be going north; I’m a cold-water kind of whale.” And tigers and whales don’t write children’s books where tigers and whales seem cute when they reflect. Humans can imagine these different realities, looking back and forward, dreaming and visioning. It is a great thing about us.

we are drawn to meditation

Egoic thinking is great…until it’s not

The downside of this reflexive capacity, Bourgeault says, “is the tendency to experience one’s personal identity as separate — composed of distinct qualities, defined by what holds one apart from the whole.” We can basically live in “our own little world” (my mother used to say!), revolving around our own sun — ourselves.

As a result of being alone and trapped within the boundaries of our limited senses, we all have a separation anxiety streak running through us because we really need and want to be together, not separate. To feel secure, the ego needs a lot of reassurance from others. It can’t get enough praise, security, accomplishment, etc. to help it overcome that dreadful sense of being left out, or thrown out, or just generally failing to be a full self in community. You can see how quickly we have all been driven into sin by this innate anxiety. And you can see why Jesus calls us to see our true selves in God’s grace, to look at ravens and lilies flourishing, to stop worrying and “seek first for the kingdom of God” as the means of becoming free of what is depriving us of joy.

Field of Lilies – Tiffany Studios, c. 1910.

Meditative prayer is a way of discovering and nurturing the latent capacity to see and experience life beyond our ordinary awareness. We can all perceive and respond to “the Mercy” I talked about last week. Nurturing our spiritual awareness is the primary way to experience the “mystical hope” I talked about the week before, the hope which is near and not the outcome of all our striving.

The centering prayer Bourgeault teaches is “a basic, no-nonsense method of self-emptying — simply letting go of thoughts as they arise — to help practitioners break out of their compulsive attachment to thinking and entrust themselves to the deeper stillness of God.” [Here is Martin Laird’s take on it.] The essence of this kind of meditation is not keeping a perfectly clear mind. The essence is recognizing the moment when one is distracted and willingly turning back into the stillness of the Mercy, toward hope. The essence is turning toward the meeting place we have inside as an act of faith and honor; letting go of our own stuff and holding a space open for all God gives and all God is.

We need to get beyond self-awareness and its evil twin: self-centeredness

We have a “self” awareness that is beyond the egoic capacity that makes us human — we also have spiritual awareness. Meditation leads us out of ego-centered consciousness and into a space where we meet God.

You may know almost every other feeling you can have better than the feeling of communion with God! Even so, someone has said we can meet God without even trying by 1) having a near-death experience or by 2) falling deeply in love. I do not wish you the first short cut and I do wish for you the latter. But I wish for us most of all the careful cultivation of meditation, which is the everyday path to knowing and loving God. Meditation is the discipline that helps us “die daily” as Paul says he does, and helps us be one in love as he hopes we will be. The prayer of meditation puts a stick in the spokes of our outer awareness and leads us into the warmth and abundance of our inner awareness and into hope in the Mercy.

It is a hard world right now. Maybe you are pretty numb like a newscaster said she was after covering the damage Trump and Hegseth have done to Iran and to the future of the U.S.  Or maybe you are afraid of more smoke from Canada and the extreme weather of our new climate. If it were not a hard world, we’d probably make it one. So it is time to pray.

Have you listened to Jesus saying this to you lately?

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Basic to that easy yoke is the prayer of meditation. We keep turning to it in our anxiety and fatigue and it keeps turning us toward hope. 

Try it again. We certainly fit into the first two lines, for the most part. Maybe his “easy yoke” is meditation where we experience his gentleness and self-giving heart. As a result of staying in that “yoke” maybe we do find rest for our souls.  Sounds like Jesus would love to bring us into the hope he carries, even through his suffering, doesn’t it? 

More on Mystical Hope
Previous: Mystical hope in a deteriorating world
Swimming in the Mercy: The experience of hope

“the cure”: Olivia Rodrigo explores her view of self and God.

A life in the Spirit, Music, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , ,
Latest album cover: “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love”

Maybe I like Olivia Rodrigo because she says what is on her mind and dares you to do something about it. Plus, I like that she does not have any pretense of being profound — she knows she became famous when she was 17 and knows she is still figuring things out on her latest album.

I first caught up with her when I realized, “Hey, Olivia Rodrigo is Nini from High School Musical on the Disney Channel! (something to occupy grandchildren and Papa during Covid). I loved how talented she is — but when I heard her songs I really liked how hysterically brazen she is.

She is a strange kind of prophet as she analyzes her own dualities and takes down the presumptions and misconceptions all around her.

This quite often makes her depressed.

A mural on Melrose announced the new album

the cure

Today’s song “the cure” (#3 on Spotify recently) caught my attention for how it reveals things about the dialogue each of us is having inside and hints at how one’s view of God makes a difference.

About the song, she says, “It’s karaokable if you’re sad.” Try it!

“the cure” was first teased in May, when two lyric snippets were painted on Olivia’s wall mural in Los Angeles (above). She officially announced the song’s release the following day. She hosted an hour-long session of NTS Radio, where she played sad songs to tease her album, and ended her set by premiering “the cure” two hours early. The mural had fans in a tizzy. As you can see, Google calls it an L.A. tourist attraction. If I were out there, I would probably go see it, too.

Rodrigo has said quite a bit about how this song was written, since it is one of her favorites on the album — and maybe her favorite, so far, in her rather successful career. She says:

I remember trying to fit “I’m unraveled” into another song and thinking that was just a really perfect, poignant way of describing what it feels like to know someone really deeply and feel like, “Oh my God, it’s really terrifying, I’m really raw right now, I’m unraveled.” I think when you’re in a deep, intimate relationship, it just sort of feels like everything you thought you knew about yourself kind of comes unraveled, a little bit, and you’re just naked. I thought that was a really cool choice of word. I remember trying to fit it into this song, and it works perfectly.

I like how, in the verses, the lyrics are super specific. “Tally up the girls that he fucked ‘til I start to cry,” does it get more specific and dark than that? And then, the chorus opens up into this metaphor. There’s poison in my blood and you try to cleanse me of it, but it doesn’t matter because it’s who I am. I just like the dichotomy of those two living together.

She was a rather wise teenager, and she sounds more like Qoheleth all the time.

Her view of self

We have an internal dialogue going most of the day. The messages we speak to ourselves reveal our view of self (VOS) and affect emotions and behaviors. Most days, therapy includes inviting clients to identify and examine their self-talk (those internal messages) in order to see who they believe they are and so mitigate depression and anxiety.  If our self-talk affirms our worth and enhances our ability to endure or overcome life’s stressors, then we are more likely to have a healthy response to those problems. If our self-talk contains a distorted or destructive narrative, then it is much more likely that we will feel and act accordingly.

For instance, imagine sitting down for that first cup of coffee in the morning and just as you are placing the cup to your lips, you spill it all over the front of your clothing.  If your self-talk goes something like, “I can’t believe you did that!  Stupid!  This is going to be an awful day,” then your chance of carrying a lousy mood through the day increases. (VOS: I am a clumsy idiot). But if your self-talk sounds more like, “Oh no! I really love this shirt!  Better get some water on that and get a new one,” then you are probably going to feel temporarily annoyed but you will be able to move past the incident and not set yourself up to have a bad day. (VOS: I am a person who overcomes troubles).

Olivia is having a profound internal dialogue in her song.

All the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind
I thought I’d done enough, but they keep moving the line

VOS: “I’m not good enough” keeps playing in my thoughts. I’m competing with other girls to to be worthy of attention and love, but I never seem to make it.

I thought I found the antidote this time

VOS: I’m waiting for someone to find me and know me. If you love me, I am good.

And all the nights I spent fighting bad thoughts in my room
Feeling so alone, might as well be on the moon
I thought I found the antidote with you

VOS: If I just had another person I would not feel so alone with my terrible self, talking back to the terrible self-talk I do and feeling defeated.

But my head is full of poison, and my heart is full of doubt
I got toxins in my bloodstream, you tried hard to suck ’em out
And it feels like medication, and it’s good for me, I’m sure

VOS: My head, heart and body are yucky and out of control.

The chorus keeps repeating the dichotomy she is examining – great mentalizing! She’s not known for being a Christian, but she often sounds like one. Here she is considering her mind, her heart and her body and wondering why what feels like medication isn’t quite enough:

But it don’t matter how your love feels anymore
It’ll never be the cure

VOS: I’m beyond relying on someone else’s love to make me someone.

Most of the time, the view of self that used to dominate us is still around, but smaller, as our new development takes hold. It has been fun to travel with Olivia Rodrigo as she matures in her art and psychological health. The realization above is one many people twice her age are still working on! — Who I am starts in me, it does not come from you.

I thought I found the antidote this time

But I’m unraveled (I’m unraveled)…
Why can’t it ever be enough? (I’m unraveled)
It’s not enough…

It will never be the cure
It’ll never be

VOS: Like she said in her interview: “Oh my God, it’s really terrifying, I’m really raw right now, I’m unraveled.”

She did heart, mind, strength and now soul as she unravels down into it. I think this is her favorite song on the new album because a new consciousness is being unveiled by love. Becoming naked at the deepest level reveals her own sense of “I am.” For her, singing about it solidifies her confidence in being herself. I appreciate her sense of wonder as she watches it happen.

View of God

Olivia is not singing a song about God, per se. But God is never far from her process, it seems. On the #1-played-song on Spotify, also from her new album: “stupid song,” she says:

Walking through the park with my head high
Past all the college girls and the drunk guys
And if there is a god, he’s the bond that’s between us two

She mentions God (or “a god” in this case) quite a bit in her songs. I love how she identifies the mystery of love in the bond she feels as God between them. She could be writing 1 John.

In the song of the day, “the cure,” she veers right up to the edge of God:

And it feels like medication, and it’s good for me, I’m sure
But it don’t matter how your love feels anymore
It’ll never be the cure

She is bold enough to beg the question, “If this loving guy is not the cure, then what is?” I think her basic answer, so far, is: “The cure is being myself, troubles and all, and accepting my place in the world.” This is amazing for a 23-year-old! It might be easier for her, since she is worth $45 million.

But I get the impression she does not think she is, ultimately, the cure, either.

There has been a lot of consideration, throughout history, about the correlation between spirituality and health. One of the most interesting findings recently is how much of a difference your view of God can make in your well-being, especially your mental health.

Since many of my clients come to me because I am a Christian, we often get into their concept of God or their relationship with God. Many people are skeptical or distant when it comes to God because they have an entitlement mentality or a punishment mentality. They see God as either being out to get you, or God is there to give you whatever you want. Neither matches who Jesus reveals God to be, but they are common views. And neither view will make us pleased to keep getting to know God better.

Research demonstrates how much your view of God can impact your health. Over the past several years Baylor University has conducted several surveys on religion among American adults, and many scholarly articles have been produced using the data. The most recent survey revealed more on the connection between one’s view of God and mental health.

The general views of God fell into three broad categories:

  1. A “deistic” God. God is real, but He is not significantly involved in what happens on this Earth or in one’s daily life.
  2. A “punitive” God. God is angered by sin, is looking to punish sinners, and one has little hope of meeting His high demands.
  3. A “benevolent” God. God is good. He is closely involved in the world and in one’s daily life, and His involvement results in good things.

The Baylor University data showed how powerfully one’s view of God can predict the presence of mental health problems. Briefly, belief in a punitive God means more anxiety, paranoia, and other symptoms. Belief in a benevolent God is associated with fewer such  symptoms.

This effect holds true even in prayer. If one is unsure of one’s connection with God, or trying to avoid God (possibly out of fear), prayer only results in more anxiety. If one’s connection with God is secure, prayer decreases anxiety and related symptoms.

We will see where Olivia ends up. I hope she’s still making music when she is 30. It would be interesting to see what she thinks about this lyric then:

And it feels like medication, and it’s good for me, I’m sure
But it don’t matter how your love feels anymore
It’ll never be the cure

I’d like to ask her then, “What do you believe to be the cure now?”

 

*******

The is Peter and Paul Day! Catch up with how the two influential disciples of Jesus became tied together in the history of the Church at The Transhistorical Body. 

A song lights the way: Journey through dark times

A life in the Spirit, Music, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , ,
That beautiful blonde hair behind the the statement red head on the left is our treasure.

I will miss the day when my granddaughter no longer invites me to hear her perform with the Commonwealth Youth Choir. Their very existence moves me to tears, and then they start singing. I prayed they could feel and ponder their selections as they sang the other night. Their songs were showing us the way out and in.

The concert was a fine ending to a good day. We got up early and walked on the beach. Then we listened to Till We have Faces on the way home and finished it just as we turned into our street.

As I often explore with my clients, the good moments need to be elongated, shared and revisited. That makes them stick with us instead of slipping away into nothing. Especially these days, when every day seems to have a new indignity or bit of destruction to torment us (as if we didn’t already have enough), we need to dwell on what is good.

So let’s do that together.

The song right on the edge of freedom

Fortunately, one little song on the concert program that night was very sticky: “Who I Want to Be” by Coty Raven Morris (arr. Saleel Menon) [link].

I lead with my spirit
keeping love in the circle around me,
expressing my spirit,
loving what I see and cannot see.
I take care of the vessel I’m in.
I love the me that’s under this skin,
taking care of my mind,
envisioning the me
I want to be.

At one point, selected singers went to the mic to voice the goodness that is in them. It was a blessing to hear what every psychotherapist must wish their clients were singing.

However, I have to admit there was a bit of a trap waiting in the song for the unsuspecting. It so firmly begins with “I” — and it is such a burden to be in charge of one’s spirit! But at least they were keeping a circle of love around them — love is so uncontrollable, it disabuses us of the idea we can control everything. And they included expressing love for what they “cannot see,” which led to the deeper places in the next song.

The song about the Great I Am

If they missed the connection with God I hoped they would make as they led with their spirits, the kids had another chance to connect with something bigger, along with the rest of us, during “Spirit,” Beyonce’s contribution to Disney’s live-action Lion King [link].

The wind is talkin’
for the very first time
with a melody that pulls you toward it
paintin’ pictures of paradise…
Spirit.
Watch the heavens open…
Go into that far off land
and be one with the Great I Am.

Beyonce grew up singing in the choir of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  Methodism can come with lots of rules and labels, but it is hard to miss the personal and universal spirituality John Wesley experienced within it. The “strangely warmed” places are where the Queen B has landed.

Her song is not too far from Jesus offering some of my favorite sentences in the Bible [link]:

Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. — John 8:54-59

Here are the seven “I Am” statements of Jesus in John [link].

The quote about entering the the far off land

People come to the Great I AM in strange and mysterious ways. I think sometimes they are with Jesus and don’t even know it. Often, quoting a Bible verse is no more help to people than their latest walk in the park — and could prove to be much less helpful. C.S. Lewis is honest about that. If you read his spiritual memoir, he is just being honest about his own journey.

We bought the audible book of Till We Have Faces in March and finished it in June — we have not become preoccupied with the immense library of stuff we can listen to. But the timing turned out to be just right. The ending was a great prelude to the questions the kids were singing.  At least they were questions I hoped they were asking as they began their journey into the “far off land,” rather than just consuming nice words and music, as we are tempted to do.

C.S. Lewis gets at the heart of why our spiritual journeys are often long and convoluted [Audible]:

When the time comes to you
at which you will be forced at last
to utter the speech which has lain
at the center of your soul for years
which you have, all that time,
idiot-like been saying over and over,
you will not talk about the joy of words.
I saw well why the gods to not speak to us openly,
nor let us answer.
Till that word can be dug out of us,
why should they hear the babble
that we think we mean?
How can they meet us face to face
till we have faces?

I know it is not obvious what Lewis is talking about in that quote. It is not crystal clear if you read the whole book! But it is at least as clear as Beyonce calling us to be one with the Great I Am. Crystal clarity is way over-rated.

About the video: Aneel Aranha is good at A.I. He came to faith later in life, but he is making the most of it. 

The quote that sticks in my mind

No matter what scraps of truth and love I find along the way to my destiny, I rely on God to make a feast of them and to host the feast, to boot. Though we try to sit in God’s seat and host our own party, grace is new every morning. We are pulled toward the light like my lilies, growing more in the shade than they should be. I see myself, my children,  grandchildren, and my clients stretching toward the light all the time.

They lean, even though they are, like we are all, to a degree:

hearers of the word and not doers,
they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror;
for they look at themselves and, on going away,
immediately forget what they were like.
But those who look into the perfect law,
the law of liberty,
and persevere,
being not hearers who forget but doers who act—
they will be blessed in their doing.. — James 1:23-25

Every little doing of reaching out and up matters, no matter what your core story keeps repeating. Every step of keeping love, of going to the “far off land” — both that vast inner territory and the vast times and places yet to be known, matter.

May the good songs elongate in your head as you go. May God bless us children as we take our first steps, next steps and repeated steps, and bless us all as we persevere on the journey.

Jungian archetypes for men: We need the wisdom and balance

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction

I have four sons and six grandsons; most of my clients are men. So I have a ringside seat, so to speak, to see what men are being taught to be by today’s society. They’ve been overwhelmed, since 2016, by the example of Donald Trump and his sons, the most brazen, corrupt robbers the country has ever known. And lately they must have noticed the toxic example of Pete Hegseth, the former Fox news analyst who is now Secretary of Defense, who said in March:

We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.

Imagine your sons applying that immorality to their daily relationships! Just imagine being a member of Congress who had to deal with the defensiveness of the Sec. of Defense last week at the hearings about the Iran War. I think he answered a few questions with respect but in response to the ones he did not like he went straight to DARVO and puffed out his bullying chest [SNL].  Drunk with power.

The quest for power

The present drift of male mental health and spirituality focuses on power. You can see it in the huge adoption of first-person shooter video games. It is hard to think that anything has developed young male attitudes more than games like these:

  • Counter-Strike 2  (2023):  A “competitive, tactical shooter game with precise gunplay” game from Valve Corporation, founded in 1996. Valve also operates Steam, the world’s largest PC digital distribution platform. In 2025 the game generated $2 billion in revenue.
  • Apex Legends (2019): A “fast-paced, hero-based battle royale with unique movement mechanics.” It made over $3 billion for Electronic Arts from 2023-5.
  • Doom Eternal (2020): A “high-octane, fast-paced ‘boomer shooter'” game “focusing on aggressive combat.” It made $450 million for id in its first nine months of release. It is difficult to estimate the billions in revenue the Doom franchise has produced since 1993.
  • Delta Force (2025): A “modern, large-scale military shooter” game from Team Jade. In Q4 2025 revenue exceeded $138 million and reached $7 million in a single day on April 17, 2026.

There are many more FPS games on the market, occupying the imagination and time of young men.

Last summer, at the Drone Innovation Cell in Vilseck near the Hohenfels, Germany Training Area, Capt. Ronan Sefton, an intelligence officer in the Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment, explained to Business Insider that piloting drones effectively and playing video games were correlated. “The people who are learning the fastest, able to fly the most controlled, fly the fastest, and very accurately” are gamers.

Naturally, the White House released a video that characterized the “Epic Fury” assault on Iran as a video game [link].

The first six days of Epic Fury cost the U.S. 11.3 billion dollars! Professor Linda Bilmes, a public policy expert at the Harvard Kennedy School, expects the cost to reach a trillion. She identified several reasons why this military operation could have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. national debt well into the future.

She estimates the short-term, upfront costs as totaling around $2 billion per day during the 40 days of live conflict. This includes the price of munitions, troops, and damage to military assets — such as the shooting down of three F-15 fighter jets due to friendly fire from Kuwait. Sorry to be crass, but it was a giant, masturbatory power orgasm. It is power porn in action.

The resurgent power model for masculinity has a virtual home in podcasts, games and porn now tagged as the “manosphere.” Our grandson told us about the Netflix documentary exploring it.

Our men are surrounded by these examples. And they are bullied by them. What will become of our sons? We live in a world of rapid technological change and shifting social norms. We all feel confused, if not dissociated or depressed! Many men find themselves adrift—uncertain of their role, their purpose, or what healthy masculinity even looks like. The traditional models of manhood often seem outdated or problematic, yet the alternatives can feel vague or unattainable or untrustworthy.

Positive male development

I was thinking about producing a men’s retreat based on much of the good material I have used in the past. But I wondered if there would even be an audience of anyone under fifty for working on what it means to be a healthy man. I honestly wondered if would-be participants might feel they could get into trouble with women for centering themselves or in trouble with bullies for being soft if they ventured out.

That’s too bad, because the ancient wisdom about archetypical patterns of human behavior and psychology provides a framework for understanding and expressing masculinity in ways that are both transformative and balanced. [The Enneagram is a form of the thinking that tries to apply archetypal wisdom regardless of male or female].

The famous book about male mental health and spirituality feels dated these days, but when it first arrived in the 90’s, alongside the FPS video games, it already seemed ancient, because it is.  Psychologists Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette put it together in King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering Masculinity Through the Lens of Archetypal Psychology – A Journey into the Male Psyche and Its Four Essential Aspects

Women have archetypal energies, too, of course Queen, huntress, sage, mother, etc. But it is all one Spirit, Paul says. Men have to deal with their expressions, some innate, some socialized in their own ways.

Categorizing ourselves and adopting strict definitions won’t help us develop healthy, adult consciousness. All Jungian archetype work, deals in metaphor, and delves into unconscious forces and universal connections more than scientific categories. But as difficult or mysterious as it may seem, it is important to stay aware of these energies because they are being perverted and broken by the men in charge as we speak. [Andrew Tate teaching]

Beyond Stereotypes

The Jungian archetypes transcend limiting stereotypes about masculinity. They offer a vision of manhood that includes strength and tenderness, action and reflection, independence and connection.

When men understand the main archetypes calling and moving them, they no longer feel forced into a single expression of masculinity. They can draw on different energies for different situations—embodying Warrior focus when completing a challenging task, King leadership when making family decisions, Lover presence when connecting with loved ones, and Sage discernment when facing difficult or transcendent choices.

In Missouri

If you were at any of the “No Kings” marches this year, you probably saw signs that rebelled  the unhealthy expressions of male archetypes. Each one can manifest in unhealthy ways when overdeveloped or underdeveloped:

  • The King becomes either a tyrant (overdeveloped) or a weakling (underdeveloped).
  • The Warrior becomes either a sadist or a masochist.
  • The Lover becomes either an addict or impotent.
  • The Sage becomes either a detached intellectual or a fool.

Understanding these imbalances helps men recognize patterns in their own behavior and make conscious choices toward healthier expression.

 Practical Applications

How do these ancient concepts apply to daily life? Consider these general examples:

  • Parenting: A father draws on King energy when setting consistent boundaries, Warrior energy when protecting his children from harm, Lover energy when showing affection and encouragement, and Sage energy when teaching life lessons.
  • Workplace: A colleague uses King energy to organize a project, Warrior energy to overcome obstacles, Lover energy to collaborate effectively with others, and Sage energy to reflect on and learn from mistakes.
  • Relationships: A partner embodies King energy by taking responsibility, Warrior energy by committing fully, Lover energy by expressing care and appreciation, and Sage energy by listening deeply.
  • Personal Development: A man develops King energy through leadership roles, Warrior energy through discipline and physical challenges, Lover energy through creative pursuits, and Sage energy through study and reflection.

The archetypes are not the sum of all knowledge, of course. But I have been surprised to know many people who don’t have an inner map of any kind to follow. These basic pathways help us develop as they give us ways to think and feel about ourselves and our behavior.

The archetypes are not the last word on gender identity, either. Transgender and non-binary thinkers also deal with them in positive ways, though, on the face of it, the uninitiated might see them are the epitome of binary. This discussion on Reddit might get you started [link].

The goal isn’t to perfect each archetype separately, but to integrate them into a cohesive whole. This integration is a lifelong journey, not a destination.

Many American men are socialized to be tough all the time, even if they know they are not—that is their version of the Warrior. When they understand they can be a Warrior and a Lover, a King and a Sage, they feel more complete and happier. By reconnecting with these timeless patterns, men don’t find a rigid prescription for behavior, but a flexible framework that allows for authentic expression of their full humanity.

In a world that often seems to have lost its bearings around masculinity, these ancient archetypes provide a map—not dictating a single path, but offering landmarks to navigate by as each man finds his own way forward. For the sake of my family, I pray they find a way into their lives before the oligarchs’ disciples poison our souls completely.

Being outside of God: Thoughts on being in

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Film/TV, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I attended a psychology conference recently with a large contingent of Evangelicals among the presenters and participants. All day long, as people explored the meaning of faith, there was an intrusive theme I kept hearing, “I am on the outside getting in.” God may be welcoming us in. Or we may be struggling to get in. But the existential reality with which most seemed to agree is that we are all on the outs with God.

I felt outside of their “outsideness.” My “other” existential reality never dawned on me so acutely. I have not stopped thinking about it ever since. I really do feel I am in with God, in Christ, right now. Undeservedly but absolutely inside.

All weekend long I kept taking issue, in my own thoughts, at least, with the extreme sense of autonomy some people were stuck with. It is a dilemma. For psychologists, autonomy is a fundamental truth to be protected. For Christians, it is a good thing but not THE thing.

Autonomy

You can get a definition of “autonomy” by watching The Pitt. The doctors on that TV show are protecting it all the time; it is a main element of their ethics. They painstakingly hold back their opinions and even advice so the patient can exercise their freedom to choose. On one episode the ER gave a dying woman a long time in a scarce bed to make up her mind about how she was going to die.

As a result of all this painstaking, the doctors end up very much like God, I suppose, letting us unfold without bossing us around. Of course, the opposite is true, too. The doctors are often portrayed as having no choice at all, constrained by science, protocol, profits and time. They are constantly complaining about being trapped by the needs of the emergency room, enslaved to their paperwork, and subject to their foibles and their relationships. They seem to feel they have no autonomy at all.

The definition of autonomy is, simply, the capacity to think your own thoughts and take action on them, not be dominated by someone else and enslaved to their will. We’re all committed to it, all feel we don’t have enough, and all feel subject to something or someone that thwarts it all day.

As a psychotherapist, much of my work is to help people exercise their autonomy to think and feel as they desire and make new choices accordingly.  Mostly, my clients want to be free of what ties them up so they can love and be loved, and so they can contribute to society and receive from others.

The Evangelical clients tend to have a further dilemma, because they believe if they think anything but God’s thoughts it is a sin, and if they feel their feelings (most of which are immoral or prone to be), it is likely a sin. They seem to be determined to take orders from Jesus the King, which releases them from the need to listen to themselves and change. It is a theological nightmare. They are strangely condemned to be in charge of their future, very autonomous and alone, but they are totally subject to someone else’s will, which is quite beyond their ability to accomplish but which is a life and death matter to accomplish, nonetheless.

For instance, the last verse of the version of O Sacred Head Sore Wounded we sang on Good Friday had this final verse:

My days are few, O fail not, with thine eternal power,
to hold me that I quail not in death’s most fearful hour;
that I may fight befriended, and see in my last strife
to me thine arms extended upon the cross of life.

Did I hear the theology right? This seems to be the gist of it: “I need God’s power to hold me (I pictured a tractor beam) because I am on the other side of death; I’m outside of the place Jesus lives. I have to fight to stay on my quest to be inside, where Jesus, one day, will greet me with open arms.

My friend protested on Facebook on Good Friday: God doesn’t love us because Jesus died. Jesus died because God loves us. Even though this is common New Testament, many of the Christians at my conference were still working out a transaction. Jesus died for me, so I have to die for him to seal the deal and get into eternity. Jesus died for me so I could gain the power to do my assignment and so be good enough to get into heaven.

To sum it up: Evangelical Christians often feel “outside” God’s presence due to a performance-based spirituality that equates grace with legalistic obedience rather than a free gift. This mentality stems from a “sin-fixation,” whereby believers constantly scrutinize their actions to measure their spiritual standing. This approach often leads to a cycle of shame, where failing to meet high behavioral standards feels like losing God’s favor, creating a perpetual need to get back in.

Let’s unpack the elements of that a bit.

Performance

A twenty-something friend told me she could not attend Jr. High summer camp as child because she had not yet spoken in tongues. She faked it. I still marvel at this. How could someone make the ecstatic experience of tongues, totally uncontrollable by definition, into a criteria for getting into camp? I understand the delight of having the Holy Spirit “come upon me.” And I think tongues were, in the Bible and continue to be, a sign of God’s presence. But make the experience a general rubric for goodness or acceptance? Teach the junior highers the need to perform the trappings of faith well? 1 Corinthians is an argument against people who would do such a thing. But if we are all outside, we will likely invent a criteria for getting in —  and, unfortunately, for keeping people out.

Measurement

Many evangelicals define their standing with God by how well they obey set rules—such as church attendance, tithing, and avoiding specific sins. When they “stumble,” they feel as though they have fallen out of grace, confusing sanctification (the process of becoming like Christ) with justification (being declared righteous). People measure their sanctification to prove their justification as if they were in charge of their salvation!

I went to a conference session by a Christian Psychologist (who I love) and he was using research models to measure love, since why should God be outside the religion science has made for itself? It was a nice attempt to put measurement back where it belongs.

Self-control

An intense focus on personal sins can lead to “creeping legalism,” where believers spend more time obsessing over controlling sin than experiencing the freedom of grace. This “sin-fixation” results in a constant need to apologize for being human, leading to a feeling of being “outside.” It often results in the need to control oneself, others and the world which never goes well.

Self-control is one of the fruit of the spirit. There is a long history of people using the word to keep themselves undefiled, especially by sexual impurity – because they want to get in. But a more accurate meaning of the fruit is: the healthy empowerment one feels when they experience autonomy, the gift of being one’s true self. In Greek philosophy, self-mastery was basically the best one could do, it was the best to which one could aspire in a cosmos full of impersonal, often irrational gods. But Christians live in a world given by a Creator who loves them and leads them, day by day. Self-control is the calm capacity to give as grace has been given to each of us.

Permission

Some evangelical teachings can create a mindset where grace is viewed as permission to sin, but simultaneously, “unmerited favor” feels fragile and easily lost. People are in a balancing act between feeling good about where they are and waiting for the other sin shoe to drop. This dichotomy leads to anxiety about one’s standing with God. The idea is, “Once I’ve given in to sin I am tainted.” This leads some people to fake being in, even when they feel tainted. It leads others into self-exile, since they know they will never be fully in.

One serious teen I knew became a Christian and showed up exhausted to talk to me one day. When I asked him why he looked so tired, he finally revealed. “I have to stay awake because I have a lot of sins to confess. I especially don’t want the sun to go down on my anger.” He really loved the idea of not getting away with anything, but he could not permit God be in charge of the forgiving. He was perpetually in charge of making the right choice to get permission to come in.

Promises

The gap between the promise of a transformed life and the reality of human brokenness creates a sense of disillusionment. The idea is, “If all the promises are not being fulfilled in me, I must be out.” Validating their own authenticity according to God’s performance can make it difficult for believers to accept they are already “inside” God’s grace. Especially when we are sick in body or mind, we assess our well-being according to what we think ought to be true. For many believers, any sin or suffering mars their perfection in Christ.

Assessing ourselves according to how well the promises of God are realized in our life is a recipe for being perpetually out of the exquisite feeling of swimming in the ocean of grace into which we were launched at birth. If the test tube truths the religion of science teaches dominate us (which are often disappointing in their own limited universe), God is regularly disappointing and we are usually disappointed or disappointing, depending on how we respond. We can end up loaded with a false guilt about how bad I must be for God not to fulfill in me what he fulfills in others!

Obedience

Dallas Willard explains how many Christians mistakenly see Christ’s teachings as laws to obey to gain grace, rather than as reflections of the life that comes to them through the new birth. This fundamental misunderstanding keeps believers striving to “get in” to a kingdom they are already part of.

This misunderstanding is so universally assumed that the TV show The Good Place could have it as a central premise. Kristen Bell does not believe she should be in the (what comes to be revealed as an ersatz) “good place” because she is selfish. It seems almost everyone is convinced that salvation requires being good enough to deserve it and obedience to arbitrary rules is key to achieving it.

In Christ

I guess I should not blame the Evangelicals for falling into heresy, since it seems like from the Middle Ages onward, Europe was a long road to re-centering humans. Christianity was reduced to a penance system long before they got there.

DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man put’s the idea of the dangerous kind of autonomy into a picture. The circle represents divine or spiritual perfection (cosmos), while the square represents the material, earthly world. By bridging both, the figure highlights the human body as a microcosm of the universe. Humans are central, especially men.

According to DaVinci’s chart, I am autonomous. I am innately free to choose. In relation to God, I am exiled or welcomed in. I relation to others I can make relationships or end them.

But how did I get out of relationship if I were never in? From the beginning to the end of the Bible (the Evangelicals purportedly love), our sense of being out is a matter of being removed from where we were. Being in with God is our natural human state.

Paul is always referring to being “in Christ.” The phrase is a spatial metaphor which signifies the believer’s renewed sense of being safe at home as opposed to their previous uncertainty before faith and baptism. Being our true selves in Christ or our false self in our autonomy is Paul’s version of being  in our out. The way Paul sees it, Jesus was at the creation of the world and we all bear his image. And according to Jesus, we are all are touched and called into abundance by God’s love. We are all in the love of God whether we think we can choose that or not. God sees us according to who we are in Christ. We have the freedom to turn away. But that is not natural or inevitable.

Being outside where nothing but the power to do “righteousness” proves our worth and where our successes give God the glory he craves results in the psychopathic Pete Hegseth and the infamous prayer he prayed at a meeting last week:

“Almighty God, who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle, you who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell, behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous.”

I think it takes little convincing to admit “the peace of the righteous,” as Hegseth describes, has nothing to do with Jesus and nothing to do with peace. The U.S. has NOT been at war, undeclared or declared, for about 15-20  years since 1776. If you can’t get into heaven, you make yourself a god on the earth, right? At least that is what a lot of people who would like to follow Jesus are struggling with in the United States.

Inner health prevents the death of resistance: Four goals for the persistent

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , , , , , , , ,

Last week, I suggested to several clients that their anxiety and short-tempered reactions were partly about living under the “Trump Cloud.” We are all there.

I, for one, am convinced the president presides over a sociopathic corruption scheme — so you can see what my cloud looks like! Others may be less interested or engaged than I am, or even in favor of a Trump autocracy — but even the 41% who approve of him live under the endless disruption barging into every day. The last few weeks have been dominated by a huge, instant war and further revelations from the Epstein files about Trump’s sexual relations with young girls. It is overwhelming for us all.

As a result, we seem more unhinged. For instance, the most interesting thing that happened to me yesterday was coming to a complete, inexplicable halt on the onramp to 76 from 676 in downtown Philly. This is where the two-lanes of freeway condense into one. It is always a jam up and frustrated people often do less-than-sane things there. But this was unusual. We must have been stuck for ten minutes (or so it seemed), so some people got out of their cars to see what was the matter, so I did too. It appeared to me that the sportscar had tried to squeeze in and the SUV bumped it to protect its right to the lane. The two drivers were out of their cars and arguing, letting the rest of us sit. Word was, the SUV would not give up his info. They were waiting for the police. The sportscar was convinced to pull over and let us pass, so I got by and did not see what finally happened.  But I still wonder, “What are we coming to? Were these guys so angry and distrustful, now so sociopathically tutored, that they, too, were claiming territory and didn’t care what happened to the rest of us?”

Stranger things are likely to happen under the cloud

What do we do to survive this era and help make a change? Here is how this post answers that question: We need to heed the many reminders about how spiritual and psychological health leads to good social change.

Yes, there are loads of strategies for how to resist effectively and how to build the future. But all of them are founded on our inner truth and love. Daniel Hunter says: “Authoritarian power is derived from fear of repression, isolation from each other and exhaustion at the utter chaos. We’re already feeling it. Thus, for us to be of any use in a Trump world, we have to pay grave attention to our inner states, so we don’t perpetuate the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion or constant disorientation.”

Trump’s second term arrived at a time of great social distrust — much of it amplified by him to gain power and wealth. But he did not generate our distrust. Across the board, society already had a reduced trust in traditional institutions. We distrust the media, medical professionals, experts and politicians – for good reasons, since they are cooperate stooges. But our distrust is deeper than that. We also distrust most local and neighborhood associations and membership groups, like churches, the PTA and all those new protest orgs. Whether from COVID or political polarization, a lot of us have even experienced reduced trust in friends and family. We can’t even trust predictable weather anymore.

You can track the development of our mistrust by noting the popularity of Stranger Things (Netflix 2016) which is about the power of human connection and courage in the face of the unknown and unexplained, and Game of Thrones (2011-19) which is about the struggle for the iron throne and how people who want power will do anything to get it, even in the face of the Great Other. Both juxtapose the normal and the paranormal as key parts of the show’s narrative and thematic structure. And both distill how nothing is what it seems to be — and so can’t be trusted.

The distrust spawned by the billionaire/hedge fund extraction project to break American democracy fueled the engine of autocracy because it makes us much easier to divide.  Trump’s tweets/rhetoric encourages it — telling people to distrust  immigrants,  Democrats, socialists, people from Chicago, women marchers, Mexicans, the press, Iranians, transpeople and so on. It becomes a social disease when people decide if a person is trustworthy on the basis of who they tell us not to trust! I spent a lot of my career as a pastor trying to create systems that provided an alternative to this distrust, but a lot of people did not trust me or the system I led, either. However, I persist.

Here are four basic suggestions for how to develop more inner resistance under the Trump cloud, which is not disappearing any time soon, beginning with regaining some trust for yourself.

Trust yourself

We have been gaslighted so thoroughly, it is very difficult to trust our own decisions, even our own thoughts. A lot of us are perfecting dissociation in a vain attempt to weather the trauma we live in.

Trust-building starts within each of us. We need to trust our own truth and love. If you are following Jesus you can trust His truth and love making you whole. Regardless, this development includes trusting your own eyes and conscience, as well as guarding your heart from the crazy-making. Like Elon Musk determined to break the government with DOGE, breaking your inner resistance to unreality is also part of the domination scheme. (Bernie Sanders recently had a chat with Claude about this). Always remember: YOU MATTER.

Trust building is trusting yourself and also being trustworthy.  We should be reliable friends, but all the parts of our inner selves should also be friends. We need to trust that the “I AM” of each of us is going to show up to help us flourish no matter what. We need an inner trust that acknowledges fear and lets that feeling pass through. We need trust that can endure the uncertainty that nags us. We need to let the “cloud” be real so we know a lot of the troubling things we feel are about the cloud, not us.

This trust building will take some time and effort, of course. We’ll need to take care of ourselves if we want the world to change. If you’re tired, take some rest. If you’re scared, make some peace. (Here is a nice list of suggestions for how to stay grounded [link]). A good starting point, for now, is to listen to the voice in you that seems the most trustworthy. Don’t keep checking your phone for validation, check yourself. Don’t keep reading this if you need to take a walk or go find a tree to feel.

Find others who you trust

We have been atomized and isolated so effectively a lot of us don’t even think about trusting people. We are on our own — and that emotional landscape we inhabit, inside and out, makes a big difference.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt explored how destructive ideologies like fascism and autocracy need loneliness to grow. She used the word verlassenheit — often translated as loneliness — as a central ingredient. As she meant it, loneliness isn’t a feeling but a kind of social isolation of the mind. One’s thinking becomes closed off to the world and becomes dominated by a sense of being abandoned.

Arendt was talking about Hitler and Stalin, but she is describing the societal breakdown we’re all experiencing, too. Trump is working on the breakdown every day. The constant attacks on social systems: teachers, health care, civil servants, courts, etc. — make us turn away from leaning on each other and towards ideologically simple answers that increase isolation (e.g. “distrust government,” “MAGA is nuts,” “anyone who votes that way doesn’t care about me”).

We have to consciously bridge that distance. People are finding ways to do that. For instance, in my church, a couple of women started an action group. People who made pods during Covid are still travelling together. Indivisible and Singing Resistance are creating new groups all the time. Most of these little groups, like the one in our church, are lamenting how little we are doing. But our very existence is resistance.

Finding just a few people who you trust to regularly act with and touch base with is central to defeating autocracy. We need to use our mutual trust to explore our own thinking and support each other to stay sharp and grounded.

Grieve

No matter what we try to do, there is going to be loss. So we will need to grieve well to live well. We will need to save our capacity to compartmentalize, rationalize, intellectualize and ignore for things like working in a large corporate structure or sorting out the basement. If we use those capacities to defend against our feelings, grief can damage us body and soul like a Kona storm sitting over Hilo.

If you aren’t a “feelings person,” let me say it this way: The inability to grieve is a strategic error. After Donald Trump won in 2016, we all saw people who never grieved; they just worked harder or avoided harder. They didn’t look into their feelings and the future — and as a result they remained in shock. They are still saying, “I can’t believe he’s doing that.” Believe it. Grieve it.

The alternative to perpetual shock is grieving — quite deliberatively, if necessary. Start by naming and allowing the feelings which arise when you confront the “stranger things:”

  • Trump left the Paris Climate Agreement and California has a March heatwave.
  • I daydream about Trump. We all wake up to bat-shit crazy headlines each morning.
  • Trump builds giant detention center for Markwayne Mullin to oversee. The Pitt has ICE coming into the ER.
  • Now it is Iran, tomorrow it is Epstein, then maybe the elections will be invalidated.

Making such a list, especially with someone you trust is health-generating. We begin to identify the sadness, anger, numbness, shock, confusion and fear. We grieve. We come out of our daze and experience acceptance. [A Spell for Grief or Letting Go]

Release what you cannot change

We are so trained to believe our individual power is the most important thing in the world all we think we can do is control something or someone. And if you are as realistic as I think you are, you already admitted control is not working well.

During the rise of the Nazis, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote the Serenity Prayer, which AA loves so much:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Trump’s presidency is deliberately making activists, especially, and all of us, feel overwhelmed. There is so much we feel we need to do and it is hard to accept we cannot do it all – at least I feel that way.  For instance, this week my interest in plastics was revived in my overall despair about climate change in the middle of an oil war. So I took the hour it took to commit to a way to do my little part. But I also saw how few hours I had. Chaos is a friend of the autocrat. One way we can unwittingly increase that chaos is by jumping into the abyss of needing to do it all.

I cannot say I am completely successful at this, but I use my journal to help me sort out what is the best I can do instead of what is the most I can do — what am I given to do as opposed to what needs to be done. I suggest we all take ourselves seriously enough to get some clarity on what is important these days. If we are just coasting through, we might get run over. If we think we are a semi when we are a Civic, we may burn up the engine. If you are in a small group trying to do something meaningful, like in church, be sure to press for a focus, not just be a committee-full of people-pleasers attempting to be inclusive and just ending up an ineffective potpourri.

It is spiritual and psychological health that will lead to good social change. That means trusting ourselves, sticking with others we trust, grieving well and releasing what we cannot change. It requires at least that much of us. We all know people who think they can sit out this challenging time. I feel with them. But I am still patiently impatient for the goodness of God to be seen and respected and put into action in our warming, war-torn world. Nurture that inner life you’ve been given, the best you — it’s the key to making a difference when we really need something new.

Temptation: The Bully, The False Lover, The Shrewd Army Commander

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , ,

I had a spiritual director once who was trained in the “Ignation School” of spirituality. Our relationship was a nice experience for me. He was a chemist, by education, and brought much of the personality and expertise of his field with him into our relationship. Being almost the opposite of a chemist, in training and typical personality type, I benefited greatly.

At one point, he told me about the three ways I could be tempted, according to Ignatius, and asked me to decide which way I was being tempted in the moment. You, like I am, may be tempted to give up your true self, or conform to the present ways of the world because of fear, or just try to ignore Jesus or all your spiritual awareness because there is just a lot of nonsense piling up all around us  it is overwhelming

I hope repeating this old post might give you a couple of minutes of clarity or inspiration, depending on how you’re wired.

I have never forgotten the imagery Ignatius offered his disciples. Here are the thoughts from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola paraphrased by David Fleming. I thought you might like to examine yourself to see how you are likely to be opposed this week.

According to Ignatius three are Three Ways the Enemy Works:

Like a Bully

The enemy behaves like a bully who is a weakling before strength, but a tyrant before weakness. It would be characteristic of a bully to lose courage and take flight when confronted with someone who is determined and strong of will. However, if a person loses courage and begins to flee, the anger, vindictiveness, and rage of the bully will surge up and know no bounds.  In the same way the enemy becomes weak, loses courage, and turns to flight as soon as the one leading a spiritual life faces their temptations boldly. (SE 325)

I have been very encouraged this week by dear friends who have had the courage to face “the bully” in whatever guise he was taking. Minnesotans may down in history for teaching us. My friends make me remember the recurring dream I had for several weeks, long ago now, in which a “monster” was chasing me. Gwen suggested I prepare to turn and face it that night rather than dreading to run away from it in my dreams. I decided to do it, and in my dream I did it. The result was exactly as Ignatius said. I proved it had no power over me.

Like a False Lover

The Enemy’s behavior can also be compared to that of a false lover.  One who loves falsely uses another for selfish gains, and so people become objects at one’s disposal or like playthings for entertainment or good times.  A false lover usually suggests that the so-called intimacy of relationship be kept secret because of fear that such duplicity will be made known.  So does the Enemy often act in ways to keep temptations secret, and our tactics must be to bring our temptations out into the light of day to someone like our director, confessor or some other spiritual companion. (SE 326)

I regularly hear about the literal “false lovers” who lock people up. Porn is the undiscussed  false lover for any people. Many people have connected with a person who doesn’t love Jesus and that relationship is a secret love. Some people have many secrets about how they have satisfied their lust and pretended they didn’t to their intimates. Sex it a spiritual matter. Although many people are resolute in pretending otherwise, there are probably no inconsequential couplings or orgasms. There are good reasons to wonder how people got into the Epstein files.

But our loves are not all sexual. We have many lovers who use us and leave us kicked to the curb. We trust our employers or addictions or abusers, even when they don’t love us like Jesus. We trust our false selves in all their delusions and bad heart-habits, even when they have repeatedly been proven self-destructive.

The solution is dialogue. We shouldn’t wait for our expectations of trustworthiness to be fully satisfied before we talk about our lovers. They are much less powerful in the light. Just because they fear the light, and they tell us that being secret is better, and they warn us of the terrible consequences of living in the light, that doesn’t mean they aren’t lying.

Like a Shrewd Army Commander

The Enemy can also work like a shrewd army commander who carefully maps out the tactics of the attack at the weakest point of defense.  The military leader knows the weakness is found in two ways:  a) the weakness of fragility and unpreparedness, and b) the weakness of complacent strength which is self-sufficient pride.

The Enemy attacks come against us at both points of weakness.  The first kind of weakness is less serious in that we more readily acknowledge our need and cry or for help from God.  The second kind of weakness is far more serious and more devastating in its effect upon us so that it can be a more favored tactic of the Enemy. (SE 327)

Peter says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. This is a similarly threatening image. Our enemy is like an army commander scoping out the weak defenses of our walled city. Some places, like the gates we open to the world every day are well-defended because we know about them. But there are weak sections of the wall, perhaps, that defend places we never expect to be attacked, or don’t want to imagine being attacked because we’ve been hurt there before, that are much more dangerous.

The sociopaths who have taken over the presidency and many corporations are shrewd in that the are single-minded in their pursuit of winning power. ICE is literally prowling. It is overwhelming. Jesus knows. John said, “ Greater is the one in you than the one in the world. Relying on our own strength is probably the weakest thing we could do.

Opposition is real

Our former church got complacent and distracted.  I think they thought we were safe because everyone supposedly loved one another. It made many people “sitting ducks” in the gun sites of an enemy shooting conflict at us. We can be so committed to our harmony that we don’t allow healthy conflict, or don’t even allow needed change to occur if it might create conflict. We even had a proverb that said, “Everyone is recovering from the sin addiction – expect conflict.”

On a more personal level, each of us might be very unaware of our childhood defense mechanisms and just consider them “normal,” or even “my right to be who I am,” or even, nowadays, “my genetic disposition that I can’t change even if I want to.” We could all use a little more Ignatian attention to our wanton self-sufficiency. The enemy would love us to be self-sufficient. It is antithetical to serving God. It makes easy to dominate, since we are basically alone looking for power when, just as Bad Bunny said, “The only thing greater than hate is love.”

Ignatian spirituality is not for the weakly committed. It takes a lot of time to ponder all the ways we could be growing stronger in faith and becoming stronger opponents to the enemies of God. I am encouraged to take the time, because much of the time I am not spending becoming aware of my temptations I am spending conforming to them.

Apocalypse: The trauma intuition of CAS

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As I listened to Laufey sing Christmas songs on Apple Music, I was, again, impressed by how well she does everything. I was basking in her warm voice when another song came on that did not fit the feed. Since I don’t know much about music apps, I was surprised. I thought it might be Laufey, trying out “edgy.” But it turned out that Laufey’s deep alto and Greg Gonzalez’ tenor are closely matched, to me at least. I had run into Cigarettes After Sex (“CAS” in what follows).

CAS in Brussels, 2017

I had never heard of CAS and , I admit, I asked in my head, “You named your band that?” When I found out more, I added, “Aren’t you from El Paso?” But, like so many people, I was intrigued by the song that showed up on my feed: Apocalypse (hear it here at a worship-like concert in London).  As of August, the song had two billion streams on Spotify, so you’d think I might have run into it. Gonzalez and the song have Wikipedia pages. Regardless, the line “Your lips, my lips, apocalypse” said so much, I needed to know more.

Background for Apocalypse

Apocalypse was on the first album the men put out in 2017 and it never got on any charts. But it went viral in 2022 when it was background music for a  TikTok trend in which people put up a photo from their childhood to remind them to be kinder to themselves.

I love how A.I. sums up their style: “Cigarettes After Sex is a dream pop, ambient pop, and indie rock band known for their ethereal, slow, and sensual sound, often described as ‘androgynous pop noir’ with hushed vocals, dreamy guitars, and romantic, melancholic themes. Their style draws from shoegaze and slowcore, creating a hazy, cinematic, and intimate atmosphere, perfect for winding down or late-night listening.” I needed a dictionary for that description, but it is apt. The NYT says CAS makes “woozy” music that Gen Z loves — and people all over the world do love it. 40something Gonzalez has a loyal — and notably young, fan base in Poland, India, Indonesia, and South America. The U.S. has only recently caught up to the rest of the world as one of their top markets.

About the song Apocalypse, Gonzales says, “The imagery is surreal, and it’s not something that could have happened. But the way I think about that song is, before I left my hometown, it was me and two different girls I’d dated and then kind of become friends with. It felt that we were like beautiful losers — stuck in our hometown with these big ambitions. At that time, it felt like it was impossible to get out of the city, and so when I left and moved to New York, I thought about them again.” You may relate.

He continued to recall the aspirations they all had, and while he escaped to follow his dreams, the friends remained where he had left them. “They wanted to be screenwriters, painters and actors. But they were still in my hometown, kind of like the song says, ‘sort of trapped there’.…Thus, the song at the end is really about being there for people, when you’re all alone.”

Trauma-informed dream pop

My interest in the song piqued when I went to YouTube and found a lyric video. I loved how the thought fragments referenced memories that are too personal to understand completely but universal enough to evoke some feelings. They showed an intuitive sense of how trauma locks people up emotionally and undermines the intimacy we all crave.

In some sense, the band may have been riding the wave of “trauma-informed” everything moving through psychotherapy studies and into society when the song came out in 2017. That wave may or may not have crested by now. I was riding it myself around then, teaching doctoral classes on trauma in 2019 and 20. Then the whole society experienced the trauma of Covid-19, George Floyd, Palestine, and now we have King Donald reorganizing Venezuela. We are all considering what to do with trauma. CAS is doing their part, providing gauzy, thoughtful, background music for us with some tenderness.

Here are 5 ways the song concisely hears us and comforts us where we are traumatized.

  • Kisses on the foreheads of the lovers wrapped in your arms. You’ve been hiding them in hollowed-out pianos left in the dark.

Gonzalez acknowledges the deep emotional pain a new partner has suffered from previous relationships and heartbreak. In its gentle, supportive way, Apocalypse captures trauma not as a dramatic rupture, but as a quiet, lingering condition — a way of being emotionally stranded even in moments of intimacy. What makes the song psychologically insightful is its restraint: the singer never names trauma directly, yet the emotional patterns align closely with what clinicians recognize as post-traumatic attachment issues and dissociation.

Here is the song accompanying the troubles of an old love trying to reconnect with a past love in a new body(!) in The 100.

  • You’ve been locked in here forever, and you just can’t say goodbye.

Being emotionally “stuck” is what we call it. Trauma can be an ongoing “reality.” One of the song’s central insights is how trauma distorts time. The emotional voice feels suspended between past and present, as if the relationship exists in a perpetual aftershock. Trauma often prevents experiences from being fully integrated into memory, leaving someone to relive emotional states rather than recall events. The song mirrors this by dwelling in atmosphere and repetition rather than progression. There is no narrative resolution — only a looping sense of longing — which reflects how trauma resists closure.

  • Your lips, my lips, apocalypse.

The view of intimacy in the song is also psychologically precise. Closeness feels just out of reach. Any touch has to penetrate a veil of numbness and melancholy. When it does, it may feel dangerous. This aligns with trauma-related attachment patterns, where connection feels simultaneously necessary and unsafe — even like an apocalypse. Rather than joy, intimacy triggers vulnerability, and vulnerability recalls loss. The result is a muted, almost anesthetized form of love — tender, but distant.

The song accompanies such a twisted experience in  SnowPiercer

  • You leapt from crumbling bridges, watching cityscapes turn to dust, Filming helicopters crashing in the ocean from way above.

The song begins with a dramatic scene of destruction. I often depict trauma like the shock of some unknown force blowing up one’s village — suddenly everything is rubble. In the song, the metaphor also describes the chaotic end of a tragic relationship — again. Such destruction seems inevitable, even expected. The subject is catastrophe, but the delivery is calm, almost resigned. Trauma survivors often normalize emotional devastation, treating it as the background condition of life rather than an exceptional event. Some therapists might feel this is more realistic than setting our sights on some ideal happiness — a goal line that might feel like it is always being moved back. By presenting emotional collapse in such a subdued tone, the song captures how trauma dulls one’s senses, even alarm systems — things are less likely to feel shocking anymore, even the end of the world.

A fan used the song to sum up an episode of  The Last of Us to that effect.

  • Oh, please. Come out and haunt me, I know you want me.

The lyrics are a plea for the lover to let go of their fear and the emotional cycles that keep them “locked” in their past. The dreamlike music evokes a sense of dissociation. The vocals, production, and pacing feel submerged, as though we are all slightly removed from what we feel. This mirrors a common trauma response: staying emotionally present enough to function, but detached enough to avoid being overwhelmed. The listener senses feeling without having full access to it, which is how dissociation often manifests.

  • Sleeping soundly with the locket that she gave you clutched in your fist.

Ultimately, the song is a comforting message of support, with the singer promising, “When you’re feeling low I will be there too.”  Its refusal to assign blame or seek meaning is itself psychologically astute — trauma doesn’t always come with clear villains or lessons. Often, what lingers is simply grief, confusion, and longing for something that can’t be restored. Apocalypse honors that ambiguity. It doesn’t try to heal the wound — it empathizes with what it’s like to live inside it. I think people sing along with this song at the concert because they love being seen and are passing on that good feeling to others. The whole arena is living inside the wound together, clutching what little comfort they have, but also hearing the hope that someone else is with with them and even for them.

CAS demonstrates an intuitive grasp of trauma psychology — not through explanation, but by creating a descriptive musical environment. The song feels the way trauma can feel –soft, repetitive, unresolved, and quietly devastating.

While not a direct narrative about PTSD from war or a specific traumatic event, the song deals with the themes of being haunted by the past, emotional turmoil, and the struggle to move forward in a new relationship, which all align with aspects of trauma recovery.

I think the whole song also aligns with Jesus walking with us in our “lowness.” Especially this week, during Epiphany, God’s message to the world is “When you’re feeling low, I will be there too.”

We cannot “skip grades” in spiritual development

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Let’s start with Morton Kelsey, the agnostic pastor who met God through Jungian therapy and became a spiritual guide for others. He knows quite a bit about not graduating from previous “grades” in spiritual development, yet he is positive about our capacity to keep moving along the inner way. Here is a quote from one of his more than 50 books:

“We can grow at any time. The human being is far more plastic than most of us ordinarily believe. However, the task that we need to learn, the development we need to achieve, can only be accomplished earlier or later at a much higher cost than at its proper time. Much of psychotherapy consists of providing the environment in which people can live through a stage that they missed before. Spiritual direction…will involve this kind of direction and counseling and companionship for the simple reasons that the various stages each provide essential elements in a full and mature religious life. We cannot skip grades in spiritual development.” – Companions on the Inner Way

Inhibited spiritual development

The metaphor of “skipping grades” does not completely suit Kelsey’s point, since we don’t pass tests to get from one stage of development to another and no one can really judge what our final mark should be. But the metaphor does picture our need to cross boundaries of maturation to get into further stages. Jesus called the process moving along the “narrow way that leads to life.” And we know he was well acquainted with people who  stubbornly stayed on the way that leads to death.

As a psychotherapist, I am accustomed to exploring the past to find unfinished psychological issues. As a spiritual director, I accompany my companions on their parallel journey into wholeness. Along the way we bump into incomplete loves and assumptions that inhibit their growth and joy. As a developing person, I am also on the way. None of us are managing to skip grades, as much as we might like to.

We might start exploring entire sides of ourselves at 50, even, and wonder what we were doing at twenty. Whenever we become aware, some of us get excited to see the new possibilities; but others are daunted at the work they see ahead. My client’s development may start very basically: they need to survive and get to square one. Soon they may feel some confidence and receive some affirmation. Then they are likely to discover that the  lacks they note and the abundance they feel both hint at the possibility of trust and happiness. God wastes nothing; it can all come to good. My own experience and the experience of others convinces me we often have unfinished work from the past stages of our development that either blocks us from progressing or taints the development we have achieved. What needs to get finished can cause us a lot of suffering. But God is with us.

One thing that helps us keep moving through the suffering on our narrow way is  understanding the stages of how we develop so we can identify what we are still carrying  or even reliving from our past — especially from our childhood or adolescence. Exploring the way we grow also helps examine our adult development (or lack of it), which is often left unpondered, as if becoming an adult were the end point. Kelsey inspired me to look at it all again in seven stages and look for the kind of things that keep us “held back” so to speak.

The seven stages of our spiritual development

Nothing I am about to list is particularly new. I’ve written about it myself, many times. But I found it useful to explore it again, now that I am where I am today. You are probably down the road to life somewhere new, yourself. Let’s see if we can note what is unfinished and could use some love from you and maybe some new choices.

Stage 1

Knowing what you now know about how your family was working when you were born, imagine how you were being prepared for your spiritual journey.

Children are like tender plants. They can be educated, but mostly they must be allowed to unfold so they are open to relating to a loving God who can give them confidence in the ultimate nature of the universe. Faith takes root early. If they are not tended with grace  they can be closed to that possibility and live in deep-rooted fear or worthlessness because of what they have experienced with the humans on which they relied. Fear and shame also take root early. The most essential element in early Christian nurture is consistent human warmth and understanding, kindness and love. Unless people receive these things as children they find it very difficult to believe in them as adults.

We learned a lot by the time we got to kindergarten. How did you learn to see the world? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Sunday school – Christ Church Denver

Stage 2

Try to remember being you in elementary school. By the age of 3-4 we are able to store memories, but first-hand experiences are more likely to be stored when we have language more developed in our growing brain. How did you experience God as a child? Did your environment encourage spirituality?

In the stage of early childhood we begin to develop our sense of personhood and distinguish between inner and outer awareness. That “I am who I am” is called the ego. We need that self awareness to differentiate our spiritual awareness within it. Later on, we may need to let go of aspects of the view of self we developed as a child, but you can’t give up what you have not achieved. At this stage we learn language to express ourselves. We develop our left brain with reading and math, and our right brain with music, painting and stories. A great need in this stage is acceptance by others for who I am becoming. If I am nurtured with warmth and love I will take on the values of my parents and develop a conscience. If I am controlled and punished or violated, I may turn to violence and fear. We should avoid leading children to dig into the unconscious at this point. We’re not ready for that.

We developed an enduring view of self through reflection and comparison by 4th or 5th grade. Can you remember what is was like to see yourself and be seen (or not)? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 3

Think back on your teen years and your early twenties. Our struggle for autonomy took a winding road to get where we arrived. We needed to rebel against the structures that formed us to either make them our own or go another way. What did you do? Did you have anyone to trust with your spiritual journey?

Sometime between 11 and 15 (and earlier all the time, it seems) our hormones push us into puberty and we come to the first bloom of our sense of autonomy. During this stage we test everything and are tested, this includes psychologically and spiritually. In the U.S. we have generally lost the formal initiation rites traditional cultures have, so many are left alone to find their own way. At this point in life, it is useful if caring adults are understanding of the process: parents and, especially, another trusted adult who can help us deal with fears and doubts about ourselves and God. Rebellion against the religious values of parents is almost necessary if we are ever to have faith of our own. It is during this stage that young people become open to the unconscious and to spiritual awareness. Check our Robert Johnson’s take on the process in He and She.

The pressure to become adults may have resulted in a significant season of depression by the end of our teen years. Who had you become by then? How did it feel? Who or what did you trust? Did you experience God? Make a commitment? Set a direction? Get derailed? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 4

You can probably remember your late twenties (if you aren’t there right now). You may never have really moved beyond them. Early adulthood often includes our most life-changing and enduring experiences of God and community, but sometimes results in our long-lasting distance from both. You may be in the middle of the troubles associated with finding your own way and deciding how to align.

The process of differentiation and reorientation that began with puberty may take a long time for many people, and some get arrested at this point. Young adulthood is a continuation for the foundation of sexual intimacy, vocation/career, individuality and mutual responsibility. We must be led by our own convictions and establish our own patterns. We may have many professions over our lifetime, but we should complete this stage by becoming proficient in one. In the postmodern era, it seems like this is one of the most emotionally trying stages of development. The fruitless search for meaning young adults face and the gnawing sense that their present work and future opportunities are slim often lead to despair and avoidance. All the drawing power of our screens does the greatest damage here: porn, games, gambling, shopping, presenting our image, comparison, and relationships apps. The confusion and despair can be met with spiritual direction and companionship, but many churches are dominated by inattentive old people, so that can be hard to find.

How are you doing or how did you do? Did you come to a full sense of yourself? Find a place in the world? Did you form an adult relationship with God? Or did you get sidetracked or are still in the middle of it? By this time you have a life story. How do you tell it? How did you tell it? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 5

Can you name what your middle age has been like, if you are there? The transition can be confusing. Middle age is when we are most likely to experience running into the wall of the unfinished development of our previous stages. It is a struggle to get into the future or into deeper realms of ourselves when we are stuck in our past.

This fifth stage might hit precociously spiritual people during puberty or young adulthood, but more likely comes between 35 and 50. It is often called the midlife crisis. We have developed and achieved some status, perhaps. But we are not satisfied and death is becoming more real. The children may be less needy or gone and the profession may feel old or unsuitable. Some people may return to childhood faith and move beyond it into deeper meaning. Others may look at their struggle and pronounce it purposeless. Toggling between beauty and boredom, bounty and bitterness is not uncommon. Our society gives little help with a search for meaning, and religion seems coopted by the endless power struggle all around us. Some accept fundamentalism in the Christian or political sense and give up their independence and critical capacities, as we can presently see. This is a time in life when fellow strugglers and spiritual directors are crucial. We are confronting our inner depth but also looking into the abyss.

How are you doing or how did you do it? Did you get into the second half of your life or are you still working on that? By this time, others may have saddled you with a life story. How do they tell it? Are you stuck in their view of you?  Are you disappointed that your idealization of yourself is not accomplished? Can you connect with God and others with a deeper spiritual awareness yet? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 6

Eventually, our bodies tell us we are old. Most of us do not have a plan for that time and many of us realize we need to develop the spiritual and relational resources we are missing.

Old age is not always a golden age because we have not successfully passed through the first five stages effectively. Most of us have more time to explore the possibilities, however. We may have less family obligations and more disposable income. We can simplify our lives and focus on what is most important to us. Many people allow their religious and creative impulses to emerge. Many interesting books and biographies are written by people in this stage because we are drawn to remember and take stock of our lives. Most of us become more able to accept our flaws and reconcile with others. But some of us are overcome by the fears that were held back by our resilience, which is now waning.

What is your story of this stage? You may think of your past as your story, but old age is also a wonderful time to develop. What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 7

The final stage, of course, which we will definitely not be skipping is death. In this age when centenarians are being minted at an unprecedented rate, it makes sense to consider what it means to die, and what it means to be dying for quite some time.

Some may see their final days as “there is nothing to be done but grin and bear it.” Younger people who doubt any life beyond this one, often feel like old people just rub their noses in their mortality — the nursing homes are full of their parents. Helping the dying die well is a valuable service for which more and more people are needed. Preparing to die by living well and knowing how to die well is a worthy endeavor at any stage. Paul was wise enough to know “I die daily.” He said, “To die is gain.” It made him brave to face his end no matter when it happened.

If you are in this stage, thank God you are still reading and thinking along with us. We need your wisdom, prayer and love. We even need your frailty to call out our compassion. Accompanying you to death helps us honor our own death and encourages us to get serious about what comes next. How are you doing with the Lord’s promise of eternal, abundant life? It is never too late to move beyond what blocks our experience of life. Like Kelsey taught, “We can grow at any time. The human being is far more plastic than most of us ordinarily believe.” What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

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Today is John and Betty Stam Day! Get to know these interesting examples of missionary passion at The Transhistorical Body.