The last time, at the winter solstice, we spoke of light and darkness. While light usually is treated as more positive than darkness, the two are in fact inseparable and one emerges from the other. It is the dark night that allows us to see the light of the stars. The song, Anthem, by Leonard Cohen and the story, The Friendly Giant, by Oscar Wilde, speak of the cracks in the walls around us and, in fact, in everything, as places where the light of new life gets in.

These thoughts call to mind the issues of openness to grow and develop, the willingness to move beyond our present levels and ways of seeing, feeling, and caring. It is like noticing these are like an old coat that no longer fits and needs to be let go of. It is like leaving the home of familiar ways and venturing into the realm of new thoughts, feelings, and attitudes.

I once heard someone describe how a particular kind of crab periodically grew too large for its shell, and returned to the ocean where it shed that shell and took 24 hours to grow a new one. During that it remained quite vulnerable. The speaker then commented that life was a process of shedding shells, in which there are times of transition during which we may be quite vulnerable.

This can be a process of coming to see life in a new light. It may be a change in the angle of vision or horizon through which we see things. A problem that bothers us, for example, may look different in the middle of a sleepless night and in a conversation over lunch with a trusted friend. At the same time, we may be reluctant to let go of a way of looking at life that seemed to give a certain security in order to become open to new possibilities that may move us in an uncertain direction.

A good illustration is the story, All the Years of Her Life by the late Canadian writer, Morley Callaghan, In this story, a young man has been irresponsibly relying upon in his mother to rescue him from any difficult situation. As she helps him be extricated from another incident, he begins to see her in the new light, which includes a vulnerability he had not noticed before. He recognizes his own failures, and finally approaches a level of maturity. The story concludes: “He watched his mother, and he never spoke, but at that moment his youth seemed to be over. … It seemed to him that this was the first he had ever looked upon his mother.”

Sometimes we may glimpse someone in their vulnerability or someone may catch a dim glance of our vulnerability. It is then perhaps that we experience a call to acknowledge each other in our uniqueness and respect our sacred worth. I recall an experience many years ago when I caught sight of someone’s fragility when, as it seemed it was not intended. It was as if catching sight of something through the back door, and left a sense of uneasiness blended with a need to respect that person. The whole issue of trust arises here, which may be the topic for another reflection

A similar theme of openness to new light out of darkness can be found in the story of Snow White, as it appears in the Grimm Brothers version. It begins with a queen who longs for a child that is as white as snow, as black as the ebony window frame and as red as the blood that fell on the snow from a pricking her finger. In this instance, the colours black and white express the totality of light and darkness, the totality of feelings that are found in a person. The red stands for the powerful feelings, specifically the self-giving love of the one queen and the destructive hatred of the other queen. As she matures, the child is faced with a choice between the two reds, the choice between a life grounded in love and a life rooted in hatred. In tasting the red part of the apple offered to her, Snow White experiences all of the red feelings of life. This is a death and rebirth experience, and the awakening occurs through the receiving and giving of love.

A similar choice is echoed in the story of The Two Wolves, in which the child tells the grandfather of the struggle within himself between the wolf of love and the wolf of haste, and asks which one will win. The grandfather replies simply: “the one you feed.” In other words, we do experience contradictory feelings and tendencies within ourselves. Yet we can move in the direction of choosing to nourish our capacity to love, to bring to life and foster growth. Or we can feed our tendency to hatred which pushes us in the direction of domination and destruction.

What emerges from the above materials is that all of us experience the whole range of feelings and possibilities, and that we are drawn or pushed in different directions. To move in one direction or another will inevitably involve a struggle and be a gradual process. To move in a direction of love is to move towards an acknowledgment of the sacred worth of self and others and to try, however haltingly, to follow that direction. At the same time it will involve a struggle with our fears and hostilities in which we acknowledge their reality, but attempt not to unleash them on self or others. It will likewise involve a struggle with our own and others, sense of worth.

May your experience of shedding the shells of feelings, thoughts, and attitudes that no longer fit, give rise, despite our felt vulnerability, to a new and fuller life within us and around us.

Norman King, January 02, 2021

“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” This is one of my favourite lines from the poetic songs of Leonard Cohen. To me, it suggests that in the midst of the experience of our limitations, our vulnerability, our mortality, there emerges the light of meaning and of hope. As I have often expressed it, our sacred worth is not taken away by our wounds, but even revealed and shines through these wounds. For example, we come closer to people, not when they brag about themselves but when they are open about their struggles.

A striking sight for me is when, driving before a cloudy sky, rays of light shine through the openings, the cracks, in the clouds, and stream down to earth. Another obvious occasion is when we see a rainbow flowing from light shining on rain clouds. The dancing movement of the Northern Lights is still another example. We likewise need to drive well outside areas of dense population to find sufficient darkness to be able to see the light of millions of stars or the milky way.

If you drive before sunrise early in morning, everything is very still and silent. Then, as the light begins to appear, there is often the movement of a light breeze, the birds begin their daily song, and animals begin to stir. It is like an awakening, an opening up.

We are now around the time of the winter solstice, when the night is longest and the days being slowly to lengthen. Darkness slowly recedes and light starts to expand. The cold of winter gradually gives way to the warmth of spring.

There is a beautiful folk-like story by Oscar Wilde, called The Selfish Giant . The giant discovers a crack in the walls he has built around himself and his garden. Children come in through that opening and, with them, the new life of spring. This experience leads the giant to break down all the walls and give free access to the children. The episode suggests that unless we have cracks in the walls of defensiveness, cracks of vulnerability, so that children can come through–that is, new life, new thoughts, new images–then we shall remain bleak and cold and dark and desolate inside. We tear down rather than build our walls through creative, life-giving, generous, even sacrificial compassion, caring, and love. At a point in the story, the giant does comment of the seasons of our life. “He did not hate the Winier now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.”

While we tend to see light and darkness as opposites and to see light as positive and darkness as negative, there is perhaps more a sense of complementarity. As we have just said, it is the darkness that allows us to see the light of the stars. Astronauts have commented on the sheer darkness of space, which nonetheless highlights the beauty of our blue planet. It is also from the rich dark soil that the new life of plants and flowers emerge.

Benedictine monk and Zen master, David Steindl Rast observes: “The universe is an immense house, as it were, with transparent walls. But outside, it is night. Beyond the transparent walls lies the darkness of mystery … And as human try to understand the mystery in which the world is embedded, they begin to project images onto the walls of glass behind which lies the night of the Great Question.” Our human loneliness, he adds, leads us to become focused only on these images so that we no longer look through at the night. He concludes. “There can be no vision without acceptance of mystery.” In a similar vein, theologian Karl Rahner says that if we enter into the silence of solitude, we may notice that everything is surrounded by a kind of “nameless remoteness,. .. like a silence whose stillness cries out.” He then invites us to trust this silent darkness: “it is not emptiness.”

Loreena McKennitt sings of what has been called the dark night of the soul, a term that has referred to an experience when all the ideas and images upon which we have relied fall away and the mystery of ourselves and of life and of the universe penetrates and envelopes our soul. Yet she sings: “ Oh night thou was my guide, of night more loving than the rising sun.”
We have previously noted how Einstein speaks of the invisible energy of love as the dominant force in the universe. I recall as well the experience of a friend who was groping his way to his car on a cloudy winter night, when the moon emerged from behind a cloud and shed a pale light over everything. He said that his overwhelming experience at that time was that he was loved.

It seems that the core of all this imagery of light and darkness is that they have many layers of meaning. Whatever is of light is surrounded by and emerges from darkness, just as words emerge from silence. Our best words seems as well to come from our deepest silence. The famous conductor, Leoplold Stokowski puts it in these words: “A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.”

Rumi says “What is the light in the centre of darkness inside your soul.” “Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested… That’s where the Light enters you.” Rilke also speaks of the “deep innerness of all things.” which is with great difficulty and never successfully put into words.

May any darkness you experience be the rich soil of new life; and may any “cracks” you experience be places where the light gets in and also shines forth from within you.

Norman King
December 26, 2021

We have spoken often of our unique identity and of the sacred worth of each person and all that is. Yet at the same time it is good to realize the relational character, the connectedness of everything. This reality is deeply experienced when its apparent absence is felt in times of acute and painful loneliness.. Then there is is a sense of disconnection, of not belonging, the feeling that nobody knows or cares about us.

This reality of connectedness is certainly true on the scale of the universe. As Brian Swimme puts it in the film, The Journey of the Universe: “The stars are our ancestors.” Every element in our bodies and that of all nature comes from those in the stars. We also speak of mother earth, of earth as the origin of ourselves and as our home. We have also noted that breathing, drinking, and eating are not just private activities, but are essentially relational, expressive of our relationship to and dependence upon the earth. The whole issue of climate change is a vivid reminder of our dependency on the earth and the consequences of disrupting that relationship. Author Wayne Muller has commented that by the very fact that we are breathing, we belong, we are part of the while ecosystem. It has also been brought out that we are breathing the same air as other humans and animals have breathed for thousands upon thousands of years.

Yet so many fail to feel this belonging, and instead feel isolated, alone, and alienated, that is, feeling other than and estranged from the people and world around them, even those to whom they are supposed to feel close.

I have had occasion to explore these questions in different courses. An obvious example has been dealing with the themes of loneliness, solitude, and friendship, isolation and belonging, estrangement and community. Another inquiry concerns the topics of knowledge and freedom, which can be viewed respectively as the gathering and gift of self. As we gradually become aware of ourselves in our distinctness (knowledge), there follows a longing to give ourselves to another or others or to something which provides a feeling of belonging and purpose (freedom). Basic questions that arise out of our emerging into awareness are: who am I? where do I belong? and what am if for?

Many years ago, I also had occasion to offer a course on this process of separation and unification, that the ancient Greeks called the problem of the one and the many. The division of a single cell is followed by reintegration into a new unity. I have watched kittens being born and, as soon as they emerged, they sought their food source in their mother. On watching this birth process, my then 6 year old daughter’s comments were: “Ooh its messy,”. To which I replied: “Life is messy, my dear.” She then added on how cute the baby kittens were. Each day as they grew visibly, they would wander further away from the mother cat, only to return, until much later they went our on their own to give birth to the next generation of cats.

In a somewhat similar way, a woman gives birth to a child who is then placed in his or her mother’s arms. The small child, in playing peekaboo, is apparently dealing in a humourous way with the fear of separation. Implied here is a growing awareness of oneself as a separate being and therefore able to be separated from another, yet profoundly needing them. Later the child runs out to play and runs back home periodically to reassure their belonging. Stories like Hansel and Gretel reveal how sometimes children are not simply allowed and encouraged both to venture forth and to return. Instead they may be cast out or imprisoned, victims of rejection or possessiveness. This is the experience of all too many children. The story reaffirms, nonetheless, that despite this wilderness experience, they may still find a home within themselves and in caring others.

Philosopher John Smith gives a striking account of experience. He says that we don’t start out with an awareness of ourselves as a distinct individual and then try to relate to other distinct individuals. Rather it is the opposite that happens. Initially there is no sense of a distinct self. Then as we interact with others and the world around us, in ways that may be both enjoyable and hurtful, we gradually become aware of ourselves as distinct from the persons and things of the world around us. I like to express this experience by saying that gradually we come more and more into our own hands. We do so as distinct from and over against the persons and conditions around us. As we do, we feel more and more the longing to place ourselves somewhere where we feel we belong and where we can be and do something worthwhile. This is the process of the gathering and gift of self.

Yet, as the Hansel and Gretel story expresses, sometimes the emerging of the self happens in a wounding context. It can be one of rejection which can push us to become clinging, or one of smothering which can push us always to keep our distance. In either case, it can be hurtful in a way that can make us wonder about our own worth, as well as our ability to relate creatively to others and the world around us. In its most negative expression, it can lead us to withdraw in a crippling fear or to lash out in a destructive anger. Ideally, with the help of one another, we can live and respond out of a sense of our own worth and that of those we encounter, even when differ from them or are even in opposition. Hopefully, however, there will be many occasions of connection in mind and heart, in creativity and in friendship.

It does seem the there is in us a deep longing that the self that comes into our hands is a valuable self. The pain of feeling that we are worthless or of little worth is terrible. All these reflections over the weeks have been based on the assumption of our sacred worth, and have focused on ways we may come to experience that worth in ourselves and others. A key element in the recognition of that sacred worth is the realization that it is not taken away by the limitations and wounds that are part of every human life, whether these occur more gently or more harshly.

The voice of hope that calls from deeply within us sings out the conviction that our longing for worth is not in vain but expresses the profound reality of our sacred value. It invites us to realize that we have something to give flowing from who we are. It is our presence and our gifts as they find themselves in our present life-situation. And it blends with the recognition that the world of persons and things around us, though wounded as well, is worthy of the gift of who we are and its many dimensions.

May your discover more and more the gift that you are and the gifts that you have, and increasing feel, with each new breath, a sense of belonging and also a sense of enduring purpose in your life.

Norman King, December 19, 2021

Last week, we spoke of our unique identity, using the image of the unique song that is each of us. We said too that this song, that who we are, is the fundamental gift that we have to offer one another. Using the same image we might add that it can often be a long and slow struggle to discover our song, to discover our real voice, and not simply be an echo of our culture, of our background, of how others have named us, however well-intentioned.

These thoughts call to mind the story of Echo from Greek mythology. On the surface, the story reflects the phenomenon of an echo, a sound that comes back to us from a mountain or hill, repeats itself over and over, and gradually fades away. More profoundly, it suggests that if we only repeat what we have heard from outside, and never find our true original voice from within,we will gradually fade away and die inside.

One further striking element in the story is that the young woman Echo is condemned to this condition by the goddess, Hera, whom she has inadvertently offended. In other words, often we may not simply fail to find our own voice from within, but we may be deprived of that voice. We may have an alien voice inflicted upon us, by others or society, from their need for power, control, unrealized ambitions, conformity, or jealousy, all of which may mask a lack of awareness or an unfaced fear.

A similar theme is expressed in the story of Rumpelstiltskin, in which the task is to spin straw into gold, to take the raw material of our life and fashion it into a lasting work of art. Yet this challenge is occasioned by the arrogant boastfulness of the young woman’s father, the miller, and the greed of the king. To succeed in this wounded context, she has to rely upon the dwarf, that is to say, on all her own inner resources. The successive cost is imaged as the string of pearls, the ring, and the future child. Without spelling out details, the challenge is to develop all our different qualities (pearls), to integrate or unify them (ring) , and to struggle with our destructive tendencies (loss of child or future).

It is striking that the word for voice comes from the Latin word vocare, meaning to call. The challenge of creating of our lives as a lasting work of art is to pass from what we are called by others to the call we hear from our own deepest centre. It is to discover not just our job or our profession, but our vocation. It is what we are called from within to make of our lives, in light of our own deepest inner voice.

At the same time, there is an unfortunate cultural assumption that our own voice is in opposition to others, that others are an obstacle to our freedom. A common (mis)understanding for freedom seems to see it merely as the ability to make money at the expense of others. I think it is better understood as the capacity and responsibility to grow and develop as persons, to fashion ourselves into a lasting work of art. And it would occur, with the help of others, and also on behalf of others.

I have found–though much easier to express in words than in real life–that the degree of freedom that we have as young adults depends somewhat on the degree of intelligent love we have received as children. To the extent that this is lacking and is incomplete, as it always is, there is a struggle to become free, to grow beyond the fear and hostility that weigh us down. At the same time, our freedom is fulfilled, not in endlessly remaking arbitrary choices, but in giving ourselves fully and completely. Freedom is fulfilled not in avoidance but in commitment. The question, it seems to me, is not how to avoid decision and commitment, but how to find to what or to whom we can give ourselves completely. The question is what is worth the gift of our whole self. In effect, it is a question of learning how to love.

An insightful understanding is offered by philosopher, Robert Johann, who comments that human rights, which imply freedom, are bound up with the reciprocity of persons. I cannot assert rights in front of an impersonal tornado or hurricane. My rights, he says, depends upon your responsibility to recognize and treat me as a person; and your rights depend on my responsibility to recognize and treat you as a person..

The poem by Robert Frost, The Death of a Hired Man, portrays a the person who lacks a real home, except for the couple who afford him a safe place to die. He is characterized as having “nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope.” Aside from a more insightful interpretation of this story told as a poem, it offers an image of being empty-handed, of lacking the capacity to gather ourselves into our hands as something of sacred worth, and lacking something to give to and entrust with that self.

Put in slightly different words, I have the challenge not only to discover and express my own unique voice and song, but to do so in a context of respect for you and your voice and song. And we find our voice only within the framework of helping one another to discover and express that voice and sing that song.

May we learn more and more to discover and help one another to discover our own unique voices, and to contribute at least in some small way to the harmony of our own lives, of our relationships and of our world.

Norman King, December 12, 2021

Whether in flowers, music, painting, story or other expressions, the theme of beauty returns again and again. I think that it is a profound human need, yet one that is sometimes recognized as such only when it is deeply experienced.

I recall vividly my first trip to Europe. It was especially the architecture that struck me, perhaps more than anything the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, as well as the beauty of the city itself. The sculpture and painting as well really resonated. On returning to Canada, I found that I had to listen for a few weeks to classical music. It was the closest I could come to sustaining that European experience. I had a powerful sense that we have a very deep need for the experience of beauty.

On another occasion, when living in Quebec City, a group of us went to Montmorency Falls and the surrounding wooded area. Back at the university residence, we listened to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. The beauty of the music not only matched the beauty of the natural setting, but even seemed to name that experience in a way that words could not. The experience of this music is beautifully captured in the original version of the film, Fantasia, especially in the storm sequence followed by the unfolding calm beauty of the world showered with the light of the sun. At the same time, in listening to this symphony, I had a keen sense of the flowing quality of music. Its movement through time that a mirrored the tinge of sadness felt in the passing time of our own lives. It reflected also the same movement experienced in hearing a story unfold.

A writer on the philosophy of story, John Shea, has said that any sorrow can be borne provided a story can be told about it. We might add that, when an event, real or imagined, is situated in a story, it provides a framework of meaning for the event. It holds all the fragments in a unity. A non-story, such as the play, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett or the novel, The Stranger, by Albert Camus, conveys a sense of meaninglessness. Even further, when a unified story is encased in beauty, as in the Shakespearian play, Romeo and Juliet, it provides an enriching experience. Despite the tragedy, the life of the characters depicted is felt as meaningful, and so, by extension, are our own lives.

The beauty of art and music and story and nature is a reflection of the beauty of the human heart or soul. Writer Thomas Merton, speaks of the “secret beauty” of every human heart, and says that at the centre of our being is “a point of pure truth … like a pure diamond.” The story of Rapunzel tells how, isolated in a tower, the young woman sang out of her loneliness, and the beauty of her singing rang throughout the forest and reached a young man who was profoundly moved by it. The story suggests that out of the solitude that allows us to get in touch with and express our deepest self, the result is something that reflects its beauty.

Sometimes in a conversation or a shared experience, we may come to a vivid realization of that inner beauty of a person. On one occasion, a young woman was telling me of a horrendous experience of abuse inflicted on her as a teenager. At the same time, there was an overwhelming sense of the inner beauty of this person that the horror could not take away or even reach.

There is a film based on a story imagined about the painting by Johannes Vermeer called The Girl with the Pearl Earing. When the young woman is finally able to look at the finished portrait, she exclaims, “You looked inside me.” It seems that the role of art in any form is to express outwardly, however incompletely, an inner beauty that is often hidden. I recall once seeing a photograph of a 100 year old Innuit woman, whose facial wrinkles themselves had wrinkles. Yet the overall impression was one of incredible beauty, perhaps the beauty of a heart and soul that shone through.

We have often quoted the words of Eva Rockett in an older Homemakers magazine, who says that the beauty of music reaches beneath all our defenses and reaches the core of the condensed self. One effect of beauty can be to pass through the layers of the self, and have a healing effect on us, at the same time as it unveils in a non-threatening way our need of healing. In a similar vein, it is the experience of forgiveness itself that enables us to admit th need of forgiveness

One thing that has struck me about beauty, whether in persons or nature or the arts, is that, in reaching our inmost centre, it draws us out of ourselves, not to possess, but to admire and appreciate, and even to be transformed by it. To experience something or someone merely as property can lead us to grasp and possess it, to see n not in terms of itself, but only in terms of a perceived need. If we experience the beauty of another person, if we experience another person as a being of interior beauty, we can never violate that person.

The experience of beauty can also invite us, in fact challenge us, to grow in the direction of that beauty. The story of Rumpelstiltzkin, for example, calls us to spin straw into gold. That would seem to mean that the challenge of a lifetime is to take the raw material of our life, however limited and passing, like straw, and transform it into a beautiful and lasting work of art, like gold. This thought is reflected in the poem of Rilke on a statue of the Greek god, Apollo. He feels that he is seen by this statue who addresses him with the words: “You must change your life.”

I’ll conclude with an experience, again, of many years ago. Lorraine and I were visiting her uncle at his farm in northern Alberta, which bordered on the now longer used farm of her parents before they moved Windsor when she was a young child. A storm had arisen and as it passed, a rainbow appeared, and came to an end on the porch of her parents’ old house. It was the first and only time I had seen a rainbow’s end, and it was an overwhelmingly beautiful sight that remains always in my imagination. It seemed to embody all that is positive in a lifetime.

May your own lives be filled with rainbows, with beauty. May you come to discover more and more to experience the beauty of music and story and the natural world and so much more, and especially the beauty of your own heart and the hearts of those around you. And may you be awakened more fully as a result to a sense of meaning, to a recognition of worth that leads to compassion and generosity for yourself and those whose lives more closely intersect with your own, yet expanding in ever widening circles.

Norman King, November 28, 2021

We concluded last week’s reflection with a story familiar to many of you, called The Gift. I’ll repeat it here and add a brief comment
In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young woman whose eyes came      back again and again to the man’s flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively he handed the flowers        to the young woman,. “I can see you love the flowers,” he explained, “and I think my wife would like for you to have              them. I’ll tell her I gave them to you.” She accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk                through the gate of a small cemetery.

The story focuses on two generations, the old man and the young woman, and the relationship between them. The key image in the story is that of flowers. Flowers are beautiful, but short-lived, and are often given as a gift expressive of love, as is the case in this story.

Flowers express the beauty of life. Over and above fruits and vegetables which are necessary to stay alive, to survive, flowers express the something more of life, its value and meaning. A world without the colour and beauty of flowers would be like a world without music or art or story. These help us not only to stay alive but to live gratefully. Beyond being alive they help us to come alive and to be more fully alive. We need not simply to be alive but to come alive and to be fully alive.

Flowers also express the brevity of life, despite its beauty, since they bloom and fade, but are renewed again in the spring. They reflect the cycle of the seasons of life, the winters and springs of our life as well, as we have mentioned in the story of Demeter and Persephone. This theme is also reflected in the lyrics of the song, The Rose. “When the night has been too lonely/ And the road has been too long/ And you think that love is only/ For the lucky and the strong/ Just remember in the winter/ Far beneath the bitter snows/ Lies the seed that with the sun’s love/In the spring becomes the rose.”

Flowers also express love. They are intended as a gift from the heart to the heart. The old man gives to the young woman the flowers that he had originally intended to give to his wife, and expresses that this would be her wish as well. The “heart” of the story is precisely the transfer, so to speak, of the love of the man for his wife to the young woman, the next generation. The love of the man for his wife is not frozen or stuck by her death. Rather, he has allowed that love to continue to “bloom” by passing it on to another generation. The love he has shared with his wife, and her wish as well, is not to stop with her death, but to continue to be shared.

The story reflects the conviction of Erich Fromm, that love is not merely a bond with one person, but an underlying attitude and character development of the whole person. It is a matter of the kind of person we are, and of our underlying capacity to love, which we bring into any particular situation. It implies being in touch with our own sacred worth and thereby able to see and respond to that worth in others. Of course, the degree of connection, contact, and intimacy will vary from situations of close friendship to occasional encounters with a cashier at a store. Yet the recognition and respect of their personhood would be present in every situation, granted this is a difficult and only gradually and incompletely realized challenge.

This evolving process is portrayed beautifully in the story of The Secret Garden. In this story, a young girl, Mary Lennox, is orphaned and comes to live with her uncle, Archie who had lost his wife, Lily, some years previously. In his grief, his heart is closed and locked, reflected in the sickness and seeming paralysis of his son, Colin. The whole situation is expressed in the image of the physical or outer garden which has been closed and locked since Lily’s death. Archie has locked both the outer garden, and his own inner garden, the garden of his heart. As the story unfolds, both gardens are gradually opened again, and the love of Archie for his wife awakens and flowers again in his love for his son, Colin and his niece, Mary.

The story suggests that, despite, through, and beyond unbearably difficult losses, it is important for all of us to struggle to keep open or to re-open, to cultivate, and to share with one another, the secret garden of our own hearts.

In this vein, the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi, writes: “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”

Contemporary Buddhist meditation teacher and writer, Sharon Salzberg writes in Real Change. of what she calls equanimity. “Equanimity means being with pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, in such a way that ouyr hearts are fully open and whole, intact. … Equanimity can be described as the voice of wisdom, beoimng open to everything, able to hold everything. Its essence is complete presence.“

Like the words of Rumi and Salburg, The Secret Garden suggests, in story form, that if we pass through the sufferings, betrayals, and deaths, that are part of life, and into the secret garden of our heart, we will discover the seeds of new life that flourish in wisdom and love, and move towards a fuller and richer meaning, one that finds expression in an ever expanding outreach in justice and compassion.

May the joy and sorrow of your life heal, open, and expand the secret garden of your heart, so that you sense more deeply your own sacredness and that of all that is, however hidden; and may it flower in a wisdom and compassion that gives meaning to your own life and enriches those whose lives you touch,

Remembering my brother, Mike, who died November 19, 1972
Norman King, November 21, 2021

There is one feature that struck me in speaking of the meaning of “heart” as the inmost core or unifying centre of the person. It was not only the notion that love is what most gives meaning and fulfillment in our lives. It was the form of love expressed by Einstein, and in the stories of King Midas and Rumpelstiltzkin. This is the love of a parent for a child. This theme is found also in King Lear, where his outer blindness gives way to an inner seeing of the reality of a genuine love beyond manipulative flattery.

The story of Beauty and the Beast further illustrates how this basic love, now expressed for the child to the parent, at once remains and is drawn upon and transferred to the spouse. The myths and folktales, from Oedipus to Hansel and Gretel, as well as my experience with the Children’s Aid Society, also illustrate how frequently there is the presence of abuse rather than love. Yet they also hold out the hope that even where this has been the case, it is still possible for a person to find their way through that dark forest to their true home, and to be a home to others.

This is also a theme of Wayne Muller in his book Legacy of the Heart. He says that many adults who were hurt as children “exhibit a peculiar strength, a profound inner wisdom, and a remarkable creativity and insight. Deep within them–just below the wound–lies a profound spiritual vitality, a quiet knowing, a way of perceiving what is beautiful, right, and true.” In this light, he adds: “Your is not to keep trying to repair what was damaged; you practice instead is to reawaken what is already wise, strong, and whole within you, to cultivate those qualities of heart and spirit that are available to you in this very moment.”

These words again evoke our constant theme that there always remains within us a sacred and valuable core that nothing or no one can take away, whether we realize it or not. If we realize that we are a gift, the gift of who we are, embedded in the gift of life itself and its meaning, we will be able to share that gift. If we think of ourselves-erroneously in this view–as a burden, an accident, or a mistake, as wrong or evil, we will only be able to transmit that negativity to others. Sometimes it is other persons or the world of nature itself that conveys and supports that sense of self-worth that enables us, in turn, to love.

This perspective offers a renewed understanding of power. When someone feels deeply loved, they come to a sense that they are lovable and that they can love. To feel unlovable readily leads to withdrawal and lashing out, to destructive consequences. In a positive sense, power is understood as bringing something to life, calling forth life in someone. A more negative sense is power over or domination, which can be viewed as the tendency or compulsion to put something to death in someone. An example of the first meaning of power is to procreate, raise or educate a child. In the second meaning power means to batter, abuse, or neglect a child.

A third and perhaps most vital sense of power is exemplified in the possibility to take the battered, abused, or neglected child, and bring that child to life, physically, emotionally, mentally, artistically, morally, and spiritually. In this sense power is the ability to bring to life even out of the many deaths in the midst of life. And that is the power and meaning of love: to give life, to enhance life, to enrich life, in all its dimensions.

In a book simply titled About Love, Josef Pieper writes that more than the qualities another person may have, the basic experience of love is that it is good that the other person is, that they exist, and that it is good to be with that person. The celebration of a birthday is the recognition that the day that this person was born is a good day, that it is good that they are alive. A funeral, itself, if authentic, involves an acknowledgment that this person’s life is worthwhile, that it is worth remembering, that it is memorable. One expression of love is to say to another: “I will never forget you.”

Perhaps the most thorough and enlightening understanding of love is presented in the classic work by humanistic psychiatrist, Erich Fromm, in his book The Art of Loving. He begins by saying that the

deepest human need is to overcome our separateness without sacrificing our uniqueness, as happens in many mistaken forms. Mature love is not a superficial emotional reaction of clinging to or dominating one particular person. It is an underlying attitude and character development of the whole person. It is a matter of the kind of person we are, and of our underlying capacity to love, which we bring into any particular relationship.

This is an activity that comes from within our deepest self and shares our inner aliveness with another. It is an active concern for the real needs and the growth and development of the person. It sees the other person as they really are and cares for their unfolding in their own ways and for their own sake and not just in response to my perceived needs.

The most basic form of love which underlies all others, he adds, is the respectful concern to further the life of any other, based on the experience of our common humanity. Concretely and practically, however, our becoming fully human and being able to love genuinely, Fromm insists, is developed through responding marginalized., disadvantaged, and oppressed members of society. “Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose,” he says, “does love begin to unfold.”

I would like to conclude this weeks reflection with a very brief story which is familiar to many of you. We can perhaps comment further on it in next week’s reflection. It is called The Gift.
In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young woman whose eyes came      back again and again to the man’s flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively he handed the flowers        to the young woman,. “I can see you love the flowers,” he explained, “and I think my wife would like for you to have              them. I’ll tell her I gave them to you.” She accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk                through the gate of a small cemetery.

This is an example of love as an underlying attitude to life, a life-giving attitude that is carried into any contact we have.

May a thread of respectful caring, both given and received, be woven into the fabric of every day of your life, and make of your life a beautiful tapestry

Norman King, November 15, 2021