Recently, I shared a few thoughts on the struggle to move towards a sense of our own sacred worth, which often comes up against our tendency to self-rejection. I referred to stories from the New Testament, with a brief reference to the stories of Narcissus and Sleeping Beauty.

Many of these stories arose within the context of a patriarchal tradition which took for granted that men are superior to women, that women must be in some ways subordinate to men, and that they are suitable only for certain types of work in home or society. Rosemary Ruether makes what is for me a very helpful distinction. She says that, while these stories are inescapably sexist, they have also wrestled with issues of life and death, and we can separate this wrestling from their limited context.

What this approach suggests to me is that we can look at these stories with new eyes. We can explore them from a standpoint of the fundamental equality of all persons yet the uniqueness of each one. We can affirm our common sacred humanity yet respect the diversity in which it is clothed. Within this new angle of vision, we can them explore and accept what they can tell us about what it is to be human and the meaning of our lives. They can help us to live our questions.

In the story of Narcissus, for example, we can look at the situation portrayed by Echo. In the story, perhaps originally suggested by actual echoes, the young woman, Echo, is condemned never to initiate a conversation but only to repeat, to“echo” what she hears. The story suggests that we must discover and speak from our own voice, not just echo the voice of others, of our society, our family, our friends, our nation, or the strangers who pass through our lives. If we do not find and live from our true inner voice, the voice of our sacredness, we will fade away and die. That is, we will never discover and live from what Thomas Merton calls our true self. We will become an impersonator rather than the person we truly are. And among the voices we hear, and perhaps repeat or parrot for most of our life, there is the quiet voice that calls us beloved daughter or son, the voice of our gifted sacredness, and that is the voice to listen to, tune into, and live from. Only then can we become free and fully alive for ourselves and others. We do this, I believe, through a blend of solitude, friendship, and social involvement.

The story of the young man, Narcissus, is perhaps likewise drawn from the experience of the life cycle of a flower by that name. In the story, Narcissus flees from any closeness until one day he sees his reflection in a pond of water, falls in love with it, and yet cannot embrace it. In one version, he falls into the pond and emerges only as narcissus flower whose gold centre stretches toward the sun.

In an insightful interpretation by Thomas Moore, the story is about how we will flee from intimacy, we will not let ourselves be truly loved, and we will inflict hurt on others, unless and until we discover an image ourselves as lovable. The fear of rejection, the fear that we are not enough, leads us to try to fashion an image of ourselves to project to others. This image of what we regard as acceptable becomes a wall behind which we hide. It is a wall of fear which readily becomes a wall of hostility. If we become silent enough we can begin to listen to the voice of our sacredness. Or it can be conveyed to us by another who senses that sacred self beneath these walls.

We then undergo a process of death and rebirth. We die to, that is, let go of the layered images of self that have lived behind walls of fear and hostility, and allow our sacred self to emerge into the light of day. We learn to trust where it is safe and appropriate, and allow ourselves and intelligently trustworthy others to experience our vulnerability. This is not a once and for all experience, but a process that is continually undergone, as the cycles of the season.

Gabor Mate, a physician who helps people recover themselves after childhood trauma or addictions, says that from the beginning of our lives we are drawn both toward authenticity and attachment. Often, however, the need for acceptance leads us, even unknowingly, to sacrifice our authenticity. Yet, he insists, it is never too late to rediscover and live our authenticity. I would add that genuine belonging is not fitting in by presenting an acceptable image of ourselves. It is belonging in our uniqueness–which is perhaps a good understanding of friendship.

In sum, we can look at these stories from the standpoint of our unique sacredness, our shared and equal humanity, and our enriching diversity. And we can ask, what do they tell us about discovering and growing into and sharing our unique personhood and common humanity. And they tell us that we are beings of worth, although it is only on the other side of sorrow and struggle that we can discover and live from our sacred authentic self. Yet as we do so, we will gradually become more free, truthful, trustworthy, loving, and just persons.

Norman King

In a well known expression, Richard Rohr says that suffering that is not transformed is transmitted. The challenge is to acknowledge our own pain rather than inflict it on others. If we are able to become attuned to our own sacred core, deeper than and not overcome by any sorrow, we can move gradually from a genuine self-acceptance and self-caring to a concern for others, those nearest to us, and then those more distant.

Wayne Muller also stresses that there is a certain amount of pain in everyone’s life, sometimes great and sometimes small, like a wind that either blows gently or roars through a persons’s life. Gordon Cosby also adds that most of us have an a great deal of unfaced suffering in our histories that has to be looked at and worked through.

What they all stress is that we are able to face our own pain and not have to run from ourselves and the pain that lives within us. Despite our initial fear and reluctance, if we do so, if we allow our sadness to open our hearts, we will find within us a greater freedom and peace, a fuller sense of who we truly are, deeper than any sorrow, We will find, as Rohr says, that they become sacred wounds rather than disfiguring scars, And we will be freed from becoming cynical and bitter, and from needing to scapegoat others and export to them our unresolved hurt. We can also then become, in Henri Nouwen’s terms, a wounded healer to one another.

I would add that what is often helpful is to entrust our sorrow to a trustworthy other. This is a matter not of inflicting or imposing it upon another as an attack, but rather offering it to another as a gift behind which is our very self. As I have often said as well, it is important that such recognition be in a safe place, which may be a time quietly and non-judgmentally by ourselves as well as with an intelligently caring other. And the naming of such experience can be through image, story, music or other art form.

Of course, there is a whole spectrum of experiences, of joy and love, peace and hope. These are also good to name and entrust. Many years ago, I said that we are transformed by what we let affect us deeply. I think that this means to allow ourselves to experience and come to awareness of all the different dimensions within ourselves. Yet it also suggests that in terms of influences from without that we not be open to everything outside us where there is a choice. This can include something as simple as avoiding listening to too many newscasts to to deciding not to expose ourselves to contacts or relationships that have a toxic impact on us.

Within this framework it seems most meaningful to experience deeply, to name our experience, and to share our experience. And if we realize that our own experience is limited, we may also allow our experience to be enriched and expanded by the named experience of others. Again, perhaps the best naming can come from the images, stories, music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and other art forms, as well as philosophical traditions, and these within as well as outside of religious traditions.

Norman King

It may be helpful to think of this decision, not so much as an isolated thought, but rather as a new step in your child’s life journey. For each child, the journey will be different, as will the musical experiences. And yet, depending on the teacher and the commitment of the child, each musical journey will be one that affords the student, the teacher and parents alike, to grow in ways that extend beyond the confines of “ learning the instrument” and refining technical precision.

To engage a child in the pursuit, but also the joy of music, is to open a world of untapped imagination, creativity, and wonder. To engage in music making and listening, is to create a heightened awareness of the world around us and indeed, inside us. Music awakens us not only to growth, but to sensitivity, compassion and even a new sense of love.

The famous conductor Leopold Stowkowski spoke of the canvas of silence upon which music is written. Our world is often cluttered with modern technology that includes ipods and cell phones and other sounds that create chaos in us and around us. The time spent on lessons and on practising need not lead us to think of music as an imposition, but rather as an opportunity, an oasis of sorts, where we may experience stillness and even silence.

If we think of music lessons as a gift, that is, a gift from parent and gift for the child, we may then come to think of the inevitable practising, not so much as drudgery or discipline, but rather as a time to discover (or uncover) not only what lies within the music, but also to find the music that resides inside each one of us. This process encourages something beautiful to be created in all of us.

When we come to recognize music as a gift for ourselves and offer that gift to our children, we open ourselves and our children to commitment, rootedness, beauty, and an energy that creates and encourages finding the centre of our being. The extent to which we afford our children opportunities to find their true selves may, to a great extent, influence positively the adults they may become.

Jane Ripley

In these troubled and unpredictable times that COVID-19 has inflicted upon us, I have longed to retreat into a safe and more predictable time. Since looking forward does not offer that possibility, at least for the foreseeable future, I was reminded today of a visit that Norm and I made to a beautiful cathedral in France.  We were able to touch upon there, at least for a time, a space in which we could feel the presence with gratitude and let go of its stresses. At the same time, we  were able let go of  wrestling with the past or questioning the future and to be total present to an enveloping “now.”

Most tourist destinations in France tend to include some of the more popular and outstanding cathedrals in Chartres, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, Sacré Coeur Basilica, to name a few. A short drive north of Paris, however, took us to an unexpected gem on our first visit to France. We made it a must on every future research trip after that: the Gothic Cathédrale Notre Dame d’Amiens.

I mention this cathedral, because  I was feeling particularly restless today.  I decided to go through some old photos of France trips, and came upon pictures of this magnificent space. I was reminded of how necessary silence and quiet space are to our well being and to our ability to cope with the hassles of our current uncertain times.

As I closed my eyes to move beyond the photos themselves, I recaptured the experience of being in Amiens.  It came to mind that the medieval builders in fact tried to maximize the height of the space so as to “reach the heavens” and to create as much light as possible. When one first enters this space, these objectives are at once both seen and felt.

I remembered thinking, in that first visit, of the words of Lauren Harris, one of the famous Group of Seven painters.  He said: “I try to get to the summit of my soul and paint from there, there where the universe sings.” The experience of sitting in that beautiful cathedral made me feel as if my soul were truly reaching for what those early builders must have somehow known and felt when they were reaching such spectacular heights with the architecture.

At the same time, in the silence of that space, there was a profound sense of what could only be described as “a wash of peace”–a sense that the questions of life had fallen silent for a time and that it was enough simply to exist in the present with gratitude.

Today, in the revisiting and remembering of those special moments in Amiens, I am reminded that the cathedral itself did not create sacred silence, but it did allow me to find it there. I was reminded also that we must be open to discovering sacred silence in the simplest places and at the most unexpected times and to give ourselves completely to those moments. They present us with an invaluable gift. They are nourishment for our well being in these difficult and uncertain times of the pandemic that has come upon us.

I am also reminded that silence is not merely the absence of noise, but a presence of something more. Silence is a necessary space for us to visit as often as possible–a place that allows us to regroup for the journey ahead, a place that renews and refreshes our spirit, and allows us to continue to live into the future with hope and resilience.

During the limitations that have arisen during this unusual time of the Corona virus, there has been a prolonged experience of isolation and absence of physical contact and outside activity. The result is often a restlessness and loneliness. One challenge is to convert the loneliness to solitude, which create quite different experiences.

Solitude is the opportunity to be silent within oneself, and so to be in touch with what Merton calls our true self, beneath the masks and roles that are the more surface parts, yet in which most of our life is spent. Such solitude is distinct from but may be accompanied by loneliness. Loneliness is more of a felt absence, whereas solitude is more of a comfortable presence.

Paradoxically, such solitude is essential for any truly genuine relationship. This is so, I think, for two main reasons. One is that solitude is essential for being in touch with who we truly are, beneath all our masks and roles, our hurts and fears and hostilities. Only then can we relate to another in terms of who we are and not in terms of a projected image of ourselves. The other reason is that, in solitude, we recognize that somehow everything is connected; that we all flow from the universe and whatever is within and beyond that universe.

Perhaps, occasionally, if we allow at least a few moments of solitary silence, we may become aware of who we truly are, and how all things are somehow connected, and we may obscurely glimpse what love is and how it is possible, before we are drawn back into the demands and confusion of everyday life. And we may begin to see the wondrous in the ordinary.

One of the challenges today is to find a vision of life that illumines and sustains the struggle to fashion a world in which personal integrity, human friendship, and social justice, are honoured and fostered. This, too, is the task of a contemporary spirituality: to heed the questions that arise from the depths of our human experience as personal, relational, and social beings; and to respond to this longing in a way that gives meaning to our lives.

A person’s spirituality may be understood as the basic guiding vision of that person’s life. It comprises the vision, values, and support system to which a person turns to discover or create meaning in his or her life, and to respond to the inevitable sorrows inherent in existence. The quest for meaning designates essentially the quest for identity and worth, for belonging and purpose. It is the quest gradually to gather our self into our hands, and give our lives to something worthwhile.

One of the developments in the contemporary era is the differentiation of spirituality from religion. An attendant factor is the search for a grounding of spirituality in some non-religious basis, which may at the same time draw upon insights and images from religious and other sources.

One possible foundation may lie in the conviction of the worth, value, or sacredness of the human person, and, indeed, of all life and being. This notion is one that can be shared in theory by people of diverse backgrounds and convictions, including those who adhere to a religious tradition. The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), as well as the subsequent UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1969) and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) all begin with an affirmation of the inherent dignity of all human beings. This Human Rights perspective is developed more philosophically by such authors as Charles Taylor and Michael Ignatieff, is given an explicitly religious foundation in Pacem in Terris by John XXIII, and is also exemplified in the Multiculturalism Act and Policy of Canada.

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights proclaims that recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all persons is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world. This recognition is to apply without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. This worth is inseparable from being human, and applicable to every and all human beings.

Michael Ignatieff states that the articulation of human rights gives legal meaning to deeply held values, such as dignity, equality, and respect, enables people to fashion their lives freely, and has a special task in protecting the freedom of the vulnerable. Such rights and corresponding responsibilities, he adds, derive their force in our conscience from the sense that we belong to one species and recognize ourselves in every single human being we meet.

Yet respect for human equality and human rights does not mean reducing everyone to a level of sameness, but honouring the expression of that humanness in its variety and difference. The function of human rights is to protect real men and women in all their history, language, and culture, in all their irreducible difference.

There is a progressive development, however, that involves first coming to recognize one’s own worth, extending that recognition in friendship and family bonds, and gradually and painstakingly extending it to strangers, with a particular concern for those who are most vulnerable. This latter idea is also reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, whose preamble notes that children need special care and protection because of their vulnerability, especially those living in exceptionally difficult conditions.

The human rights tradition thus holds that each and every human being, in his or her shared humanity and unique personhood, has an inherent depth and dignity, which evokes the possibility and challenge to discover and unfold their identity freely from within, in dialogue with others and the larger society. This is the basis for affirming the fundamental rights of human beings which are to be universally respected.

An example of a spirituality of human worth is found in the postwar writings of Viktor Frankl, who concluded from his concentration camp experience that the dominant human drive is the quest for meaning. Yet even when the more ordinary paths of creative work or loving relationships are blocked, a person may still find a deeper meaning through a courageous response to inevitable suffering. If there is a meaning in life at all, he holds, then there must be a meaning in suffering, for suffering is an ineradicable part of every life, and an intense part of many lives. In this perspective, even when violated in terrible, unjust conditions, the dignity of a human beings remains. It lies deeper than all violation, may continue to be affirmed by the suffering person, and calls incessantly for acknowledgment and respect.

More recently, authors such as Wayne Muller and Sam Keen draw upon a variety of philosophical, psychological, and religious sources in order to fashion a spirituality that affirms an identity, worth, and purpose to human existence, deeper than all limitations and sufferings.

In this perspective, then, the foundation of an authentic spirituality is the intrinsic worth of the human person, possessed by every human person yet in a unique and irreplaceable way in each human person. This inherent value calls for recognition and respect in attitude and action, is the basis of human rights and responsibilities, yet remains despite all violations, and calls them to account.

The challenge for each person, in dialogue with others and the world around them, in the demands of work, the intimacy of friendship, and the wrestling with the sorrows of life, is to discover and live according to their own inherent worth and that of others. At the same time, it is not a question of a narrow, self-preoccupied spirituality, but calls for a response to the tasks of one’s concrete life-situation, to a compassionate concern for the most vulnerable members of society, to the struggle towards a more just society, and to a courageous response to the sufferings of life. Simply put, it is better for all of us if each one of us regards and treats every one of us as a being of intrinsic worth.

References

Frankl, Viktor. (1984). Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Washington Square Press
Ignatieff, Michael. (2000). The Rights Revolution. Toronto: Anansi.
John XXIII. (1982). Pacem in Terris. New York: Paulist Press
Keen, Sam. (1994). Hymns to an Unknown God. New York: Bantam Books.
Muller, Wayne. (1993). Legacy of the Heart. New York: Fireside.
Taylor, Charles. (1994). Multiculturalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

©Norman King, January 1, 2003
[An Abbreviated version of this paper appeared in The Activist, May-June, 2003]

Rather than ask why we should take music lessons, perhaps we should ask what is the lesson of music. We need to study music because of what it teaches us. Music teaches us a new language. We learn to make beautiful sounds with our hands and our voices. We acquire the discipline involved in learning to play or sing. Music teaches us melody, harmony, pitch, rhythm, and all the technical skills that make for a capable and flexible mind. More than that, however, music teaches us the language of the soul. It reaches behind all our defences and touches our inmost core. Especially if it is beautiful, music reaches and expresses all the feelings of the human heart, evokes memories of all that has been dear to us, heals the wounds of life, and gives hope to the human spirit. To embrace music with an open heart is to learn what it is to be fully human.

* * *

It may be helpful to think of the decision to engage your child in music lessons as a new step in their life journey. For each child, the journey will be different, as will the musical experiences. And yet, depending on the teacher and the commitment of the child, each musical journey will be one that affords not only the student, but also the teacher and parents alike, to grow beyond simply learning the instrument and refining technical precision.

To engage a child in the pursuit, and more especially the joy of music, is to open a world of untapped imagination, creativity, and wonder. To engage in listening to and making music is to create a heightened awareness of the world around us and indeed, inside us. Music study not only develops new skills, but also awakens us to sensitivity, compassion, and even a new sense of love.

The famous conductor Leopold Stokowski said that music is written upon a canvas of silence. Today, we live in a world that is often cluttered with ipods, cell phones and other technology that may create chaos in us and around us. Lesson time, and the time spent in practising, may be thought of then as an opportunity rather than an imposition; an oasis where one may experience stillness and even silence.

In this sense, we may come to think of music lessons as a gift for both child and parent. The inevitable practising may then be felt, not so much as drudgery or discipline, but rather as time to discover what lies within the music, and even to uncover the music inside each one of us. The process of creating something musical may also become the process of creating something beautiful within us. When we come to recognize music as a gift for ourselves and to offer that gift to our children, we open ourselves and our children to rootedness, commitment, beauty, and an energy that encourages us to be in touch with the centre of our being. Through the gift of music, we may support and encourage our children to find and live out of their true selves.

©Jane Ripley and Norman King
Published in the CK Child, Fall 2013.