I believe that is one of the great lessons that comes with the midlife transition: the gift of perspective and the recognition that it’s not ‘all about me.’ On the one hand, my fears of imaginary consequences are overblown. I can put my concerns in my back pocket and walk through situations that used to terrify me, knowing that I’ll either survive or not and, either way, it’s OK. On the other hand, the world is not responsible for living up to my expectations of it. I can be satisfied with “progress not perfection.” As I look at myself, starting to heal from several days of feeling (as my grandmother used to say) “lousy!” and look at the ongoing journey I’m engaged in post-midlife and, at the same time, consider the midlife trials that our country is going through on this, it’s official birthday, I see some parallels and some interesting take-aways.

My life (like that of those around me whom I know well) has not turned out as I had ever imagined it would. If it had, I’d be celebrating over thirty-four years of active ministry somewhere in Florida along with the 234th anniversary of the republic instead of nursing a bacterial throat infection in Rehoboth Beach, DE along with my partner of 15 years (next month) and getting ready for a dinner party and trip to see the fireworks this evening. Needless to say, there have been a lot of false starts, a lot of pain, and a lot of missteps between there and here. Yet, I’m confident that, as mundane and ordinary as my life has turned out, it’s exactly where my Higher Power wanted me to be (based on the choices that I made, for good or ill). It’s certainly not a perfect life, but it’s a pretty good one, all in all, and an excellent reminder of how “the perfect is the enemy of the good enough.” It’s a lesson I’ve needed to learn in life, and a lesson that we might all benefit from reviewing from time to time.

This country — like life itself — is going through turmoil. It’s never been any different (and will never be different) no matter how many patriotic stories we tell ourselves. There’s an exhibit currently showing at the Museum of American Art in DC of paintings by Normal Rockwell. The art critic in today’s Washington Post analyzed those works very wisely: they don’t depict our country the way it used to be so much as the way we wish it had been. We’ve never actually been “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.” People are currently yelling very loudly (and sometimes violently) about “taking back” our country, without really considering what they might be taking it back to. Only an historic perspective will bring to light the political, social and economic sins that besmirched our political past, and continue to challenge our political future.

Our childhood was never the idyllic place we imagined it to be. Time scours away the experience of the pain we endured, leaving us to imagine, in most cases, that it wasn’t so bad. Yet, for nearly all of us, it was that bad. Growing pains hurt. And what we experience in the midlife transition — that ripping away of our cherished hopes and dreams to be replaced with a more realistic but sometimes starker reality — is hardly an illusion, either. Whether it’s facing an evening of social entertaining with a nasty and energy-sapping sore throat or walking through the fears and disappointments of midlife or dealing with a social and political system that falls far from any ideal, we’re always faced with the same dilemma: what to do when it hurts.

What I love most about my chosen Christian faith is the belief in the incarnation: that the God of my understanding is no deistic watchmaker who simply wound up the universe and disinterestedly set it to unwind on its own. Rather, the incarnation suggests to me that God chose from the outset to assume the for him/herself the limitations that the very act of creation imposes on reality. Faith brings with it the stark and unavoidable comprehension that God hurts. The lesson I take from this is that, as God did not shrink back from creation because it involved suffering, that neither should we.  The only way to get beyond suffering is to go through it. We can’t solve any of the problems of our personal or political life by trying to go back to an imagined earlier, more ‘serene’ time. The only way forward is . . . well . . . forward!

Neither form of escapism will work for us as individuals or as a collective: neither hiding ourselves in an angry, fearful, self-interested protectionism, nor simply whining and complaining that things aren’t going our way. Like our Creator, the challenges of each day summon us to get our hands dirty with the work of creation: becoming involved with the process of progress, and never allowing ourselves to become complacent or discouraged by our lack of perfection. When it hurts, we take our medicine, share our pain with those who care about us, and do whatever we need to do to keep moving forward. It works when we’re sick; it works when we’re in personal transition; it works as a body politic. It’s called ‘courage‘, plain and simple: nothing grand, just bucking up, trusting God, and doing the next right thing.

And . . . have a glorious 4th of July!

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

Technorati Tags:
pain, growth, transition, incarnation, courage
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |

In the Judeo-Christian world, this week celebrated the Exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, the passage through the Sea of Reeds and the hope of a promised land. Today also marks the culmination of the celebrations at Easter. They began last Sunday (‘Palm Sunday’) with the reading of one of the narrations of the death of Jesus, “Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Johanem . . . ” (“The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to <Matthew/Mark/Luke/John>”). The celebration culminates with the proclamation this morning at the empty tomb that, “He is risen; he is not here.” What all this has to do with us, and what it has to do with midlife is what I want to reflect on today.

After all the historical trappings have been stripped away, both Passover and Easter are the contact-points with our destiny. It’s impossible to grasp the full impact of their meaning without an appreciation of the nature of Sacred Scriptures (writings, texts) themselves. Everybody knows that, somehow, Sacred Scriptures (of all sorts) came to us through men and women under divine inspiration. Throughout the ages, these inspired writings have appeared, and they continue to do so: for example, it would be hard to argue that A Course in Miracles or the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous were not divinely inspired. Yet, are they Sacred Scriptures? Mere divine inspiration is not enough.

In order to become Sacred Scriptures, divinely inspired writings must be recognized as such by a spiritual community. In order to be so recognized, the texts must not only tell someone else’s story, they have to tell my story too: I have to be able to recognize myself in the writing. For this reason, the writings are said to be prophetic: not in the sense of foretelling the future, but in the sense that their meaning is open to new interpretation by each successive generation that encounters them. They are timeless because, for ever new reader, they are forever fresh and new.

Easter, then, can truly be said to be the celebration of the midlife passage, and, at the same time, the acknowledgment of the passionate destiny of each one of us. Significantly, Christian Easter reflects the prophetic nature of the Jewish Passover. The story of Jesus finds its full meaning only in the context of the Exodus story. The term ‘Passover’ itself comes from a Latin word, ‘passus‘ or ‘step’, from the verb pando (pandere, pandi, passus) meaning ‘to stretch’. Although they are very different roots, both patior and pando have the same participle form: passus.

It is not wrong, therefore, to see the connection between passage and suffering or acceptance in the Exodus story (the touchstone event in the history of the Jewish people), the Easter story (the touchstone event for Christians), and our own personal midlife passion. Spiritual transition and transformation are prophetic: they speak to the saving Presence of a Higher Power acting in and through the events of our personal lives.

Whether this past week you celebrated your liberation from slavery by recognizing yourself in the Passover haggadah, or today you’re recognizing a personal victory over futility and death with the women in stunned silence at the mouth of the empty tomb: either way the Scriptures are pointing out to you the deeper, more fundamental meaning and purpose of whatever it may be that you’re going through at this phase of your life. This is your Passover; this is your Passion. As such, this is also your liberation and entry into a new phase of your existence: from both a human and a divine perspective. You are assuming a brand new relationship with your personal destiny, in terms of which everything else in your experience needs to be reinterpreted.

Think about it: neither the Jewish people nor the followers of Jesus had any idea where they were going when they arrived at the chiros: the critical transitional moment in their life of faith. It took them years . . . generations . . . to gain an appreciation of what had happened to them. If today you stand at your own turning-point, your own passus (both in terms of passage and passion), remember that this may be your own prophetic moment: it may well take you the rest of your life to come to an appreciation of what you’re experiencing right here and now.

If you’re still standing on the shore of the Sea of Reeds, feeling the chariots of Pharaoh and his army pressing down on you, or, if you’re still in shock and awe from witnessing the suffering and death of your Hope, I say to you: be patient. Find acceptance, and trust that there is, indeed, Someone beyond yourself who holds your destiny safe and sacred for you. This is your Passover from slavery to freedom, from death to life. Know that, however difficult it may seem at the moment, ahead of you lies your destiny. Hold on to it passionately!

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

Technorati Tags:
Easter, Passover, passion, passing, transition, transformation, slavery, freedom, death, life
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |

“Why are you doing this to me” emerges as the heart-rending cry of a woman or man who’s just had the stilts knocked out from under him or her and it’s the lament of the person suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of injustice. We have heard this lament (or similar cries) for as long as we humans have been encountering adversity. Here’s a passage from the prophet Isaiah (6:11-12):

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered,
“Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant,
Houses are without people
And the land is utterly desolate,
The LORD has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.”

We might consider this age-old lament — first thought and then spoken — to be the “opening theme,” so to speak, for the entrance into the midlife transition. “Why are you doing this to me?” is the sound an adult makes when her or his world has been upended. To understand this, we need to remember the characteristics of adulthood. Once we have become an adult, we assume our independence and personal authority. Not only are we emancipated from parental controls, we also emerge from parental protection. The burden of providing for our own security is transferred onto our own shoulders and, to a great extent, we are judged (and we judge ourselves) on how successfully we’re able to provide for ourselves (and, eventually, for our families).

Adulthood provides us with some preliminary answers to life’s greatest questions: Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I capable? Am I lovable? Am I respectable? Am I honorable? Am I the woman or man whom my parents, my spouse, my children, my community can be proud of? Do I measure up to expectations? Adulthood defines success as receiving a resounding “Yes!” to all of these questions. For the adult, even kindness and generosity will be motivated and judged by what we imagine others are expecting of us, which, unsurprisingly, is most often identical to what we are expecting of ourselves. This is how the adult defines self-esteem, and this is precisely why, when one of those ‘but bombs’ hits an adult, it can be so devastating. “Why are you doing this to me?” means, in effect, “Why are you deliberately sabotaging everything that I’ve been trying to accomplish?”

Welcome to the midlife transition! Here’s your opportunity to leave the misconceptions of adulthood behind, and to step out into the clear light of maturity. All of the misconceptions of adulthood — that your value as a person is based on how well you perform and how effective you are at achieving a reasonable level of security — are based on one fundamentally flawed concept: that it’s all about you. How successful you are at making the midlife transition depends almost entirely on how effective you are at ridding yourself of that one erroneous concept. No, it’s not all about you, and it never was. ‘Success’ can never be achieved through living up to anyone’s expectations . . . even God’s!*

So long as we’re stuck in the ‘me-centered’ universe of adulthood, challenges and adversity will continue to appear to us to be focused on us (because that’s where our unconscious focus lies, and that’s the perspective from which we view everything that happens around us). As I mentioned before, “Why are you doing this to me?” is the cry of the ‘innocent victim.’ You may, possibly, be ‘innocent’ (although in the majority of cases, you have very probably been guilty at least of neglect and/or misprioritization), but you are not a victim. Keep this in mind: nobody can make you a victim without your permission. Victimhood represents the childish ‘it’s all about me’ attitude taken to its logical conclusion: I’m the cause of everything that happens.

What if you’re not all that important? What if it’s not “all about you”? What if the challenges that you’re facing in life (including all the ‘but bombs’) are simply examples of the collateral damage that occurs naturally as the universe struggles to sort itself out in its evolution? There’s the paradigm shift — the evolution in perspective — that differentiates mere ‘adults’ from those who are spiritually mature: stuff happens. Very often you may become implicated in that stuff that happens, and you have to deal with it, even though it’s not about you. The longer you live, the more stuff you’ll encounter: you’re going to lose every job you hold; every relationship that you value is going to break up; your health will be compromised; you will die. Nobody — God included — is ‘doing this stuff to you.’ It’s just life, and, with birth, you’ve bought your ticket and you’re on the ride.

Once you’ve attained this shift in perspective that so characterizes the midlife transformation, your whole approach to life and love will change. You will no longer be so preoccupied with your acquisitions and your accomplishments, and you will increasingly dedicate yourself to discovering and carrying out with integrity the purpose for which you’ve been given this amazing gift of life. Happily, the mature woman or man realizes that his or her life’s ‘purpose’ is always evolving, always ‘in process’ and, therefore, always in constant need of rediscovery, reinterpretation and redefinition. Regardless of the challenges you may face, you can receive each one as it really is: just another opportunity to grow, to evolve, and to deepen your connection with and reliance on the Ground of your being, that Power greater than yourself, the One who sent you here.

God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help
of Thy power, Thy love and Thy way of life.
May I do Thy will always.
Amen.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

______
“God’s expectations” of us refers, of course, to our understanding of those expectations. God’s real expectations of us only reveal themselves gradually over time. Much of what we think are God’s expectations are merely our assumptions based on what we’ve been taught or projections of our expectations of ourselves.

Must couples in trouble necessarily fail? No, not necessarily: no healthy couple is doomed to failure. In fact, the only ‘doomed’ relationships are those where one or both partners are unapologetically physically or emotionally abusive . Without a doubt, the only realistic option for someone who finds her- or himself in a fundamentally abusive or exploitative relationship is to exit immediately. Apart from that, I believe that many (if not all) relationships “on the rocks” could be healed under the right circumstances. From my perspective, the fact that this healing so often fails to take place could be an indication that one or both of the partners have stopped listening. Additionally, ceasing to listen indicates a spiritual problem. Let me explain.

It would seem that the  person who hears another’s voice, but is no longer committed to listening to what the other has to say has given up on her or his partner, as well as their relationship together. If you look more closely, however, it soon becomes clear that the person has actually given up on him- or herself. Empathetic listening and appreciative inquiry represent a three-fold choice: 1) to accept the other, 2) to trust the other, and 3) to engage with the other. Closing off the lines of communication also represents a choice: to cease accepting, trusting and engaging with one’s partner. Before I relate this to fundamental spiritual principles, let’s look briefly at each choice.

The choice to accept another human being is foundational. True acceptance represents a fundamental option to see in the other person another self, with exactly the same sorts of strengths and weaknesses that we ourselves possess. This choice to acknowledge the other person as another self  has two destructive opposites. The first perversion of acceptance we call ‘exploitation‘. Philosopher Martin Buber contrasts these approaches with the terms I-Thou (for true acceptance of the other), and I-It (for exploitation). To see your partner merely in terms of his or her usefulness (like a tool or a piece of furniture) or her or his capacity to satisfy you represents a fundamental denial of humanity on your part. The second perversion of the choice to accept your partner shows itself as conditional acceptance. In brief, “I’ll accept you if you do such-and-such or so-and-so.” Conditional acceptance of another puts you in the position of being their judge, jury and executioner. In fact, it represents nothing less than your attempt to usurp the position in your partner’s life properly held by God alone.

Next, let’s look at the choice not to trust your partner. Why don’t you trust her or him? Because you’ve been hurt before? The refusal to trust your partner goes way beyond self-preservation. Once again, it is passing a judgment of condemnation on another person — another self — who exhibits the same sorts of faults and failings that you yourself exhibit. In fact, if the truth were known, the faults and failings that you find most easy to condemn and most difficult to forgive in others are the very ones that you exhibit most strongly yourself. In fact, the two keys that are absolutely essential to unlocking both acceptance and trust are these: first, to acknowledge an identical humanity in both yourself and the other, and, second, to commit yourself to the path of unconditional forgiveness. Who cannot look at the plight of even the most desperate of people around us and not be able truthfully to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I?” The greatest message of Christianity — and also, I’m afraid,  its most forgotten and neglected — is simply this: unconditional, unlimited forgiveness. If you cannot forgive unconditionally, you cannot trust for very long.

The final choice is the choice to engage with your partner. If you refuse to engage with her or him, you thereby give credence to the (Jungian) ego’s false belief that you are vulnerable and need protection. It’s the same force that drives people’s frantic searching for that illusive (and illusory) ‘security’ that they believe will fix everything and protect them from danger. Once again, it would be foolish to put ourselves in harm’s way by engaging with an abusive partner. We owe it to ourselves and to them to take the necessary precautions so as not to allow ourselves to become victims of deliberate abuse. However, if you imagine that refusing to engage with your well-intentioned partner will grant you some sort of immunity from harm and from hurt, you are mistaken. Do you believe that spiritually you are invulnerable and that nothing outside of yourself — not even death — can destroy the essence of you? “Greater love has no one,” we have heard, “than to lay down his life for another.” Oddly, dieing for someone can actually be a whole lot easier than living for them.

Finally, what does the choice not to listen say about that person’s spiritual condition? The testimony it gives is nothing short of damning. Personally, I would liken it to what Christians refer to as the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ or the ‘unforgivable sin.’ Here’s what I mean. Whenever I write, I use the terms ‘acceptance,’  ‘trust’ and ‘engagement’ as  synonyms for what are called the ‘theological virtues’, namely: faith, hope , and love. The ‘sin’ against faith is the decision not to accept the will of God exactly as we encounter it in our world. The ‘sin’ against hope is the choice not to trust that our only Source of genuine security is divine providence. The ‘sin’ against love is the refusal to become meaningfully engaged with those we were sent to serve: our fellow creatures who, along with us, share the “image and likeness of God.” If the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ is a refusal to believe that the love of God is powerful enough to forgive us (and so we refuse to ask for forgiveness, and therefore refuse to accept it), then turning a deaf ear to someone we once claimed to love is a ‘sin against love’, for, as we know, the opposite of love is not hate, but deliberate indifference.

What can you do if you find yourself failing to listen? Remember the futility of protecting yourself. What can you protect yourself from? Even more importantly, what are you protecting yourself for? After all, your mission here in this world is not to try (futilely) to keep yourself safe. It’s to share with your fellows (and especially those in relationship with you) the same kind of acceptance, trust, and engagement that your God has shown to you. God hears his people’s cry . . . can you do any less?

And what about you who find yourself ‘learning to love one another’ and your words keep falling on deaf ears? You, too, have the opportunity to pass on the love of God. Your acceptance of the other can be renewed continually. Your trust of the other need never fail or fade. You may stand ever at the ready to engage. However, engagement (love) requires reciprocity. God does not condemn, so how could you? God does not constrain, either (because love can never be forced), but rather waits for all eternity for the other to emerge from his or her isolation and re-engage. You can have the willingness to re-engage, whether or not the other ever seeks it. You may never re-engage as you once did: time and the world goes on while the other chooses to isolate, stagnate, or (what’s worse) repeat the same self-defeating choices and behaviors with other partners. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to accept and trust and engage with people at every stage and every condition of your life: people who, like you, have chosen to listen not only with their ears, but with their hearts.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

Technorati Tags:
acceptance, anger, avoidance, blame, challenge, challenges, change, choice, communication, courage, crisis, death, denial, direction, emotions, engagement, faith, fear, future, grief, hope, humility, integrity, intention, isolation, love, mastery, maturity, meaning, midlife, midlife mastery, purpose, relationship, responsibility, spirituality, transition, trust, values, victim
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |

Think, for a moment, about how you create and implement plans. You engage your values and choose goals, then you select various tasks that will, you hope, take you all the way to the attainment of those goals. Your planning process takes place in your mind — your intellect. You may feel all sorts of things in the process, like excitement or anxiety, but these reactions are most often mild and somehow synchronized with your planning process. All the while, you’re sitting in the driver’s seat. Step out of the driver’s seat for a moment, imagine yourself as the object of change, rather than it’s subject, and the situation changes radically. Suddenly, your proactive intellect fades into the background while your reactive emotions move to the fore.

Reaction to change (yes, any change) presents you with a double-whammy. On the one hand, you have the knowledge that the change is taking something away from you. The grief that we’ve been talking about recently is the way your emotions deal with loss. Even this loss is a strange beastie of sorts: you can actually miss a pain that you’ve become accustomed to! It’s a grief reaction that motivates people to recreate chaotic relationships over and over again: when they extricate themselves from one bad relationship, they may boomerang back into another one. We look at them from the outside and wonder why they’re stuck in the same repeating pattern. It’s actually their reaction to the loss of their accustomed emotional chaos. From that perspective, it’s grief!

On the other hand, your anticipation of what lies ahead on the other side of the change engenders a second set of emotions: fear of the unknown. If grief represents your reaction to the occasion of loss of the familiar, then fear looks forward to the prospect of loss of anticipated gains. In other words, you’re afraid that you’re not going to get what you want. Your emotions are both reactive and illogical, so, naturally, fear shows you a future of discomfort and scarcity, regardless of the promise that the change offers you.

I’ve written before about approaches that you can take when you’re the change agent and wanting to create effective change around you (it can be done, but it takes approaching the project indirectly, rather than trying to tackle it head-on). What can you do when you’re on the other side of the equation, and change is happening to you? How can you manage your side of the change equation effectively when someone else (including your Higher Power) is in the driver’s seat and controlling the change? As is true of everything in life, it’s all a case of mind over matter. Change your mind, change your world!

What happens to grief when you reach acceptance of the loss, and become willing to let go of whatever is binding you to the past? The pain slowly recedes until it is imperceptible, remaining as only a fond memory of what was, but without the sense of woundedness. A similar transformation takes place when you replace your image of the future as a time and place of sadness and depravation with one of a future bright with promise and opportunity.

If you are a person of faith in a Power greater than yourself, then the course mapped out for you and represented by your understanding of the future will become a true source of inspiration and anticipation. Just as, when you were a child, you experienced joy in the prospect of what those who loved you had in store for you, so you can feel a similar kind of excited anticipation concerning what your Higher Power has in store for you on the other side of your transformation, if only you decide that’s what you want. There’s no growth without growing pains. Who would be shortsighted enough to refuse to grow just because it might be uncomfortable at times? Just as the antidote for grief is faith; so also is the antidote for fear: hope.

Just the fact of knowing what your emotional reactions to encountering change will most likely be (grief and fear), will also allow you to begin opening yourself up to the possibility of achieving an appreciation for the change process in your own life, and the rich rewards that are yours, if only you can train yourself (and your pesky emotions) to look beyond the momentary present discomfort to the growth experience that awaits you.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

Technorati Tags:
acceptance, anger, bargaining, denial, depression, change, grief, mastery, midlife, Spirituality, transformation, transition, fear, emotions
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |