Weekly Soul - Week 31 - Not Knowing
Today's meditation from Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living by Dr. Frederic Craigie.
-31-
It
may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The
mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that
sings.
Wendell Berry
Bill Wilson looked at his life and
recognized that it wasn’t working. He was deeply depressed and in the grip of
severe addiction to alcohol. He recounts that he “gagged badly” on the idea of
a Power Greater than himself, but cried out that if there were a God, that God
would come to him and that he would do anything God might ask in order to
change his life. Suddenly, he experienced a “great white light;” he felt a
spirit of ecstasy and transformation and realized that he was a free man. Known
widely as “Bill W,” he became one of the two co-founders of Alcoholics
Anonymous, which now offers over 100,000 groups with over two million active
members worldwide.
Acceptance is more than developing the
ability to tolerate distress. Acceptance can prompt transformation.
For some people, transformation arises out
of despair: substance abuse, failed relationships, and life-compromising
illness.
For other people, transformation arises—suddenly
or gradually—with the recognition that life isn’t terrible but also doesn’t
bring much satisfaction or joy. I have lost count of the people I’ve worked
with who have left jobs in which they were materially comfortable but
spiritually dead, like the young man who left a modestly lucrative position
with a beverage distributor when he realized that he didn’t want to spend his
life “selling people sugar water that they don’t need.”
Rarely, I find, do people who are on a
journey of transformation away from suffering have a clearly-mapped future. You
may have a clear image of Plan A in the rear-view mirror but not of Plan B on
the road ahead.
It is at this point of recognizing that
you don’t know what to do or where to do it that “the real work” begins. What
is “the real work?”
- Being willing to leave the
familiarity of the old life behind. Familiarity brings comfort and
security, even in the setting of suffering.
- Soul searching; earnestly
exploring the question of who you are and what you genuinely want in your
life. What do you care about? What brings you joy? When have you felt
really alive? What do you know, and what do you do well? Questions like
these.
- Being willing to embrace the
uncertainty and ambiguity of a new way of being. Being curious and
attentive about doors that close and doors that open. Bill Wilson had no
idea on December 11, 1934 (the date of what is known as his “white light”
experience) what a life of sobriety might bring. The beverage distributor
had no idea where his new life would take him and certainly would not have
imagined that he would find himself happily directing a program of Big
Brothers/Big Sisters. At the point of not knowing where to go, demanding
to have a clear and certain new path only stifles the creative new
journey.
Not knowing what to do or where to go is
not a failure. It need not be the dead end that it may well seem to be. It’s an
open palette, and the colors are all out there, waiting for the real work to
form them together.
Reflection
- Recall a time when you were at
a point of not knowing what to do or where to go. Perhaps in a job. Perhaps
in a relationship. Perhaps, like Bill W, in relation to how you had been
living your own life. As you think about what “acceptance” may have meant
in that circumstance, what was “the real work”—the soul-searching about
what really mattered to you and sitting with the uncertainty about what
the future might hold? How did you navigate the journey of closed and open
doors going forward?
- Consider whether there is
someone you know who has faced what seemed like a dead-end circumstance
and handled it with grace, perhaps, even, finding some healing or
spiritual growth along the way. What can you learn from that person’s
journey?
- In the week to come, pause in
some circumstance when you feel “at a loss” about how to proceed. Think
about what really matters to you and how you might move forward in ways
that align with your values about who you are. Practice letting go of
expectations of certainty as you chart the path that you need to follow.
Author
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) is an American
writer, poet, and essayist. He is a man of many talents and passions. He is
internationally prominent in the world of letters, his books of poetry, fiction,
and essays having garnered wide recognition and numerous awards. He is a
devoted small-scale organic farmer, returning to his birth state of Kentucky in
the mid-sixties to buy a farm in the region where his parents’ families had
themselves farmed for over five generations. And he is an activist and advocate
for many causes, demonstrating on behalf of concerns about the Vietnam War,
nuclear power, the death penalty, coal-fired power generation, and national
security strategy in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks. Continuing
themes in his writing have been the importance of sustainable human connections
with the earth and the importance of community.
The quotation, among the most prominent
snippets of Berry’s voluminous work, comes from his essay, “Poetry and
Marriage,” in Standing by Words (Counterpoint, © 1983, reprinted by
permission).
Book Description:
Keywords:
meditation; reflection; inspiration; miracles; aliveness; purpose; laughter; joy; presence; mindfulness; activism; acceptance; gratitude; forgiveness; creativity; civility; hope; affirmation; wholeness; well-being; mental health; personal growth; transformation; inner peace; personal reflection; joy; joyful living; inspirational quotes; inspirational commentary
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