Last week I spoke of listening to and from our own heart, our sacred core. The process of tuning in to that core may involve passing through the uncertainties, hurts, fears, and hostilities, that we all experience; then acknowledging, feeling, and sharing them in a safe place. The challenge is not to identify with any of these areas, not to see them as who we are. Rather, in the perspective, of Viktor Frankl and David Steindl-Rast, our challenge is also to tune into and respond to the meaning of each present moment.

Tuning in is a musical term, and along with story and the other arts, music, especially if beautiful, is able to reach that core. Eva Rockett wrote many years ago, in Homemakers magazine what has become a favourite statement of mine. She wrote that the beauty of music is able to reach behind all our defences and touch the core of the condensed self. Those defences may involve skating on the surface of life, a false conviviality, or any protective mask to hide who we are, even from ourselves.

What resonates with me here as well is that a pathway to our inmost care is through the experience of beauty. Sometimes our profound need for beauty goes unrecognized until we actually experience a beauty that touches our core. I recall vividly on my first trip to Europe how I was overwhelmed by the sculpture, the paintings, and perhaps mostly by the architecture of a city such a Paris. The very experience at once evoked and responded to an immense longing, of which I was not fully aware. On my return home, I found that I had to listen daily to classical music for a month. It was the only immediately available form of such beauty.

Often students who enjoy a group tour to Europe and its art galleries, experience an unnamed longing on their return. I think it is this same profound need for beauty in their lives. One image that has stuck in my mind is from the late science fiction writer, J. G. Ballard. In one novel, the only remaining birds are to be found stuffed and in museums. I recall as well a statement quoted by theologian, Jurgen Moltmann: “The birds are singing more than Darwin allows.” (A more recent approach sees Darwin as professing the survival of the kindest rather than the so-called fittest.)

It seems that there is in nature a superabundance, an overflow, an extravagance that goes well beyond mere survival. It is meaning. It is becoming more fully alive, rather than merely being alive. The fulness of life is certainly expressed in love, but also in beauty as well. In an early novel, Thomas Merton describes the underside of London, “as terrible as no music at all.” Elsewhere he writes: “Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.”

What these words suggest is that music and all that is beautiful are essential to a meaningful life. In whatever ways are possible, it is necessary to open ourselves up to that experience.

Religious Studies scholar, Frederick Streng, writes that, in the experience of beauty, whether in a piece of music, work of art, poem or story, we touch the deepest meaning of being human, and sense that it is good that this beauty exists. It is like a gift enriching our spirit, drawing us out of ourselves, allowing us to glimpse another way of seeing life, and inviting us to expand our mind and heart.

I might add that the experience of beauty puts us in touch with what is at the heart of life, a presence and power of beauty that enriches our soul, calls to our spirit, and draws us out of ourselves. It is a power of healing that reaches deeper than and even unveils our wounds, in the very process of healing them.

In her book, BitterSweet, Susan Cain speaks of transforming sorrow into beauty. She sees this quality in the words and music of Leonard Cohen. He speaks of a cold and lonely hallelujah, a celebration of life despite its pain. The inseparable joy and sorrow of life transformed into beauty is also expressed in his song Anthem. It says that there is a crack in everything and that is how the light gets in. This is also the theme of the story, The Cracked Pot. The crack in the pot which allows water to leak out gives rise to beautiful flowers.

The beauty found in the world of nature and of the arts, is also found at the core of each person. The challenge is to experience this inner beauty in a world that regularly stresses superficiality, externals, and escapism. This inner beauty we have also called the sacred worth–in oneself or others. Thomas Merton writes of a powerful experience when he was struck by this awareness.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality. … If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed..

I also recall a few experiences when I had a sense of that inner beauty in someone, and how it is experienced as an unexpected gift, a challenge never to harm, and a calling to have a caring reverence for the person.

May you uncover your own inner beauty and that of those you meet, beneath all else that clutters our awareness. And may you be open to be transformed by the beauty of the natural world, of story and music, of all that is beautiful. This experience alone may contribute greatly to can make our life worthwhile.

Norman King, May 22, 2023

Last week I spoke of listening to ourselves and others. This is a listening to and from the sacred core or centre of ourselves, and attempting to tune into the core or centre of another person.

I recently heard a podcast on CBC Ideas, which suggested everyone is incredulous in some ways. Yet people who live in more isolated and homogenous communities, or who are exposed to only one worldview, are more readily threatened by exposure to anything different. This fear can lead to unreal projections on others and even violence. Behind this fear is a longing, in the face of the fragility of human life. This, the author suggests, is essentially a longing for meaning, a longing for a sense of worth and of purpose in our lives.

I have always expressed the underlying conviction that there is a sacred worth in each person and, really, in all that is. This worth is deeper than what we have and what we do. It belongs to who we are. It therefore has a gift character that should always be honoured by gratitude and respect.

In terms of listening, to tune in to ourselves and to one another is to sense the underlying worth and the longing for meaning in everyone we meet. Anxiety about the uncertainty of our worth and meaning may come out, not just in fear, but also in a defensive and provocative arrogance, in racism, sexism, and all the others isms. These may mask the experience of uncertainty, which is hard to bear, is frequently unacknowledged, and may have destructive consequences.

The challenge is to discern and/or to hold onto the conviction of the underlying worth of everyone we meet. Even when we need to oppose their actions as unjust or cruel, it is essential, as Thomas Merton insists, to recognize their humanity, however hidden or obscured it may be.

In the more usual situations, however, with those we meet in our everyday routines, it is a question of being at home with ourselves and seeing and acting from that home. This presence to oneself, without self-preoccupation, allows us to tune in more fully to others. It facilitates awareness of the person behind their words. It makes possible a discernment of who they are, beneath the uncertainties and insecurities of every life.

Alfred Tomatis, listening specialist, makes a fundamental distinction between hearing and listening: Hearing is simply the passive reception of sound. Listening is focusing on or attending to sound in order to make sense of it. It is the distinction between all the waves of sound that pass by our ears, and those we consciously tune into.

This is similar to David Steindl-Rast’s thought that to listen truly is to tune in to the meaning of life in each present moment. In a similar vein, Viktor Frankl says that while there is an underlying meaning to life, even in suffering. The basic task and responsibility is to respond to the challenge life presents to us in each living moment.

Theologians Gregory Baum and Karl Rahner both describe the human being as essentially a listener, a person challenged to be open to the meaning of life, to the truth of each situation. The path to become such a listener is that of silence and solitude, when we tune into our core self. It is also uncovered in the open and trusting conversation that occurs in friendship.

When music and story and other arts flow from the core of the artist, they can also reach to our own core. They can help us be in touch with our own core, and to name what is found there. One example is the ancient Greek story of Echo, who can only repeat what she hears until she finally fades away. I think that this story echoes the truth that to be fully and meaningfully alive, we must find our own inmost voice, not merely parrot the voice of others or of the conventional society or culture.

Two songs that express the need to listen beneath the surface are Starry, Starry Night and The Sound of Silence. In speaking of Vincent Van Gogh, the first song says: “Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me/ How you suffered for your sanity/ How you tried to set them free/ They would not listen, they’re not listening still/ Perhaps they never will.”

The words of the second song are similar: “And in the naked light, I saw/ Ten thousand people, maybe more/ People talking without speaking/ People hearing without listening.”

One of the challenges of our age is to learn to listen from the heart and to listen to the heart of ourselves and of one another. Then perhaps we may hear and speak from the voice, not of our hurt, fear, or hostility, but from our sacred worth.

Norman King, May 15, 2023

I have repeatedly stressed the importance of recognizing and trying to experience deeply the sacred worth of ourselves, extending progressively to those near and far, and eventually to all beings. At the end of the last reflection, I mentioned briefly the thought that we are all relational and interdependent beings.

I would like this week to reflect on that relational quality. We have not created our own life, but have received it at the hands of others. Our life, by its very origins, has the character of gift. While some of the relational aspects of our lives may add to that gift, other relationships may have created more limitations, wounds, and even betrayals. These two opposing aspects of relationships either enhance or detract from our ability to feel our own worth. In addition, those who do not feel their own worth may also have difficulty conveying a sense of that worth to others.

Sam Keen, a writer on spirituality, has written that, from our background, we have received both gifts and wounds. We need to respond to the gifts with gratitude and the wounds with forgiveness. I might suggest that in every new or existing relationship, this is not a once and for all, but an ongoing process. Above all, the most important relationship we need to have is the one with ourselves.

One pathway that may facilitate the relationship with ourselves and with others is solitude, time spent quietly by ourselves. Spiritual writer, Morton Kelsey suggests that, in silence, we may allow our feelings to arise, disconnected from the outside world, and learn to deal directly with the depth of our own personal space.

In a similar vein, Gordon Cosby writes that silence will put us in touch with a host of feelings that, if put into words, will allow us to move toward a place of centredness that would reflect positively on our relationship with others.

Social worker, Clark Moustakas, also notes that, it is important to be open to experience, and not run from, the loneliness that is part of the human condition. We may then experience a new depth of awareness and meaning. Loneliness transformed into solitude may pave the way to healing, to true compassion, to intimate bonds with others and with all living creatures.

Another pathway that may affirm the relational quality of out lives is friendship. A trusted friendship involves affirming each other’s core identity, sharing safely our thoughts, feelings and experiences, and challenging positively our growth. Psychologist, Erich Fromm, says that love is possible only if two persons experience themselves from the centre of their existence. Only then can they communicate with each other from that centre. They are one with each other by being one with themselves. “There is only one proof for the presence of love,” Fromm writes; “the depth of the relationship, and the aliveness and strength in each person concerned.”

In sum, our essential relatedness does not negate our unique identity and worth, but enhances and expands it. Deeper and more than any possessions, power, and activity, it belongs to the very core of our being. May you come to acknowledge the depth of the gift of your sacred worth, and that of others. And may you share it with others in worthwhile and rewarding relationships.

Norman King, May 1, 2023

I spoke last week of life as a process of endings and beginnings. These can take many forms. Every day, new light emerges from the darkness of night. Every season, the flowers of spring rise out of the snows of winter. In our own lives, hopefully, new joy arises from previous sorrows, and healing emerges from the preceding pain. So too, compassion for others springs from compassion for self. A sense of our own sacredness flows into awareness of the sacredness of others and of all that exists. A healthy self-love frees us from the weight of self-preoccupation and allows for an awareness, caring, and love for others.

Along these lines, I recently rediscovered an article, written many years ago, by Carol Christ and Charlene Spretnak called “Images of Spiritual Power In Women’s Fiction.” The article stresses how, unless women’s stories are told, the depths of their souls will not be known. I think that this view is universally true. It ties in with our emphasis that we must be in touch with our deepest experiences, both of light and shadow. We then have the task of naming these experiences, in a way that is true to these experiences, and not imposed on them. As theologian Tad Guzie insists, storytelling is the most basic way of naming experiences.

In my early twenties, I had a very striking, rather prolonged experience, that everything I had been taught was not necessarily wrong, but was unreal. It had been inherited, and felt like a jacket that no longer fit. I felt that my awareness and conviction had now to emerge from within, and not simply be tacked on, so to speak, from without. The thoughts and convictions I arrived at, might end up being the same as before, but they had to become my own.

The article by Christ and Spretnak gives a remarkable outlining of the process involved. As we awaken to our own inner voice and the depth of our own soul, questions arise as to who we are, why we are here, and what is our place in the universe. As they arise, the conventional answers are no longer acceptable. We mentioned before the play, Death of a Salesman, and the novel, Something Happened. Both find the prevailing worldview that stresses possessions, external success, and dominating power, is inadequate and even self-destructive.

According to Christ and Spretnak, the process of awareness, and its personal and social expression, follow a certain pattern. It is one of initial emptiness, followed by an awakening, and then a new naming. The emptiness involves the falling away of conventional wisdom, the social script, that now seems hollow and untrue. Then follows an awakening ro a new and more authentic sense of self and of one’s place in the universe. Finally, there is a new naming rooted in one’s real experience, which, in turn affects how a person relates to self and others, and finds expression in society.

The challenge, it seems to me, is to get below the surface clichés to the depth of our own actual experience and to try to name that experience as honestly as possible. This process would seem to involve recognizing both the gift and wounds of life, our joys and sorrows, yet still discern our underlying sacred worth, which can never be lost.

The two authors also speak of our “grounding in the powers or forces of being.” They add: “These powers of being are best understood as forces or currents of energy, larger than the self, which operate in all natural and social processes. These forces are the energies of life, death and regeneration, of being, non-being and transformation.”

I might add that these could be interpreted as energies flowing into the gift and call to bring something to life, even out of the deaths in the midst of life. They could be experienced in a sense of gratitude for our life, and indeed for all life and being. This experience would flow into a sense of responsibility to cultivate and share that gift in a life-giving way. I might also suggest that the underlying impulse of the universe is to impel us to understand and trust the process of life as pushing toward wisdom, compassion, and justice.

One aspect of an emerging viewpoint is to move beyond a view of people as isolated individuals in competition with others, where all relationships involve domination. The alternative is to recognize an underlying equality of all persons, and their essential relational and interdependent character. Ideally, then, all relationships, especially friendships and other intimate relationships, will be marked by this equality, by mutuality, sharing of presence and gifts, respect for diversity, and an underlying trust.

May you lean to discern, trust, and follow, your inmost self. May you uncover your own and others’ authentic sacredness. And may your life unfold in a wisdom, compassion, and justice, that is life-giving for yourself and for all who enter in some way into the circle of your light.

Norman King, April 24, 2023

Last week I spoke of an inner sacred core that is deeper than all wrongness, even if that core is not unrecognized or is denied or even betrayed in ourselves or another. That inner core may be considered an expression of the universe and of the energy that fuels its unfolding. In that sense, our inner core, our unique self, pushes toward its authentic unfolding. That unfolding, in my perspective, flows not towards ignorance and hostility, but toward understanding and wisdom; toward compassion, love, and justice.

If we look at the unfolding of life within a human being, we see that it unfolds in stages: birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, and old age. Birth is the emergence of life from inside the womb to life outside the womb. It is a passage from one form of life to another. It is the ending of one form of life and the beginning of another, which may even itself be described as a death and rebirth.

The word, infancy, comes from the Latin, and means literally non-speaking. It is the time of life before language, which is another crucial stage in development. There is a certain excitement and even freedom when a child begins to understand and express him/ herself in language. A new world opens up to the child.

I like to say that, as our life develops, more and more of who we are and of our life comes into our own hands, within a relational and social context. As we gather our life into our hands, we long to place it somewhere where we sense that we belong and that seems worthy of the gift of our self.

I mentioned before that when the child asks, “Where did I come from,?” the child is not looking for a lab report or a biological lecture. He or she wants a story, a story in which they are the main character and welcomed into the group. They want their life story to unfold in a way that provides a sense of worth and belonging. From the beginning, they want a meaningful life story, as do we all.

I said last week, as well, that something is wrong if it puts something to death in one another, and it is right if it brings something to life in one another. This process goes beyond the ending of one stage of life and the beginning of another. Negatively, it is a wounding or taking of life. As a result, the renewing, growing, and healing process is the emergence of new life out of that death. A clear example of bringing to life is to procreate, give birth to, and raise a child with intelligent love. An equally clear example of putting to death is to batter, abuse, or neglect a child. Yet there is a third possibility: to bring the injured child to life, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, artistically, ethically, spiritually. This is to bring to life, even out of the many smaller deaths in the midst of life.

The emergence of new life may be experienced as an awakening, whether to a new day, a new awareness, a new strength, or a renewed hope. It is usually accompanied by a sense of gratitude. A friend from a distant country in which he felt unsafe once said that when he retired at night he was grateful to have seen another day. When he awoke in the morning he was grateful to be able to see a new day. He commented as well that he would not let anyone take away his joy.

In an article on joy in a Homemakers magazine many years ago, its author, Carroll Allen tells how after a long period of inner conflict, she was able “to let go of a negative attitude of mind that seemed stubbornly embedded.” As a result, “slowly a sense of deep relief, then freedom, then joy, began to swell in my heart. I felt delight, awe, wonder, jubilation and an overwhelming thankfulness.”

If we think of the seasons of our life, this new life is like the emergence of spring out of winter. It can be exhilarating to witness a crocus or a snowdrop rise out of the snow. In the ancient Greek story of Narcissus, he sees a reflection of himself as lovable. We might say that he comes to an awareness of his sacred worth. The resulting transformation is expressed by the narcissus flower, which emerges in the spring. With its yellow centre, like the sun, it is a symbol of new light and life, out of the preceding darkness and dormancy.

The experience can be described as a trust in light out of darkness, spring out of winter, life out of death. Theologian Gregory Baum, who directed my dissertation, has written that experiences such as failures, sickness, disappointments, accidents, all remain part of life on this earth. “It is possible,” Baum says,” to fall into situations where life is destroyed. It is possible to have one’s life shattered like a precious vase and despair over ever being able to rebuild it.” Yet, he adds, while these deaths in the midst of life are what we are most afraid of, they contain the gift and call that, out of the fragments left to us after the storm, there remain the conditions for becoming more fully human.
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The underlying sense expressed here is that no matter how long the winters, how dark the nights, there remains the gift of our enduring sacred worth. And with that gift comes the thrust to a lasting hope, and the call to new and renewed life and light.

May you always hold on to the conviction of your own sacredness, even when you cannot feel it. May you always uncover an enduring sense of hope, a movement towards light, and a dawning glimpse of new life, no matter your circumstances at the present time.

Norman King, April 17, 2023
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Last week, I quoted Wayne Muller’s as saying that we must be careful how we name ourselves. That naming will shape our lives for good or ill. He adds that, regardless of our life’s experience, “there is a potent inner luminosity that is never extinguished and that is alive in us in this instant.” To describe our fundamental, spiritual nature, he concludes: “we must look deeper, to where words do not come easily, to where essential truths are uncovered more easily with poetry and prayer, with quiet, with music and dance, with loving embrace of things beloved, with prayer and meditation.”

I have stressed throughout these reflections that it is essential to be in touch with and allow ourselves to feel all our feelings, even the difficult ones, but in a safe place. Yet there is the person beneath the feelings, who is more than and not reducible to these feelings. An essential task is to name that deeper self, that core identity, and to feel it as sacred, as having an inner or intrinsic worth. This worth goes with being the person we are. It is there from the beginning, and so has a gift character. It can be lost sight of, but not lost. It can be betrayed, but not destroyed. It remains as an impulse and challenge to be in touch with and live from that worth in self and others.

At the same time, from many sources, from family to culture, we can be given the impression that something is wrong with us. It can be conveyed not only that we have done something wrong, but that we are wrong; not only that we make mistakes, but that we are a mistake. This experience is commonly labelled as shame.

San Keen has written that the task of a lifetime is to change the unconscious myth for a conscious autobiography. We might reword that expression to say that the task of a lifetime is first to let go of the script of unworthiness. Then, behind that inherited or imposed script, to uncover and follow the script of our own sacred worth, of our true identity from within.

As an example we might note that one of the strongest way to score points in an argument is to drag in something out of the past. Someone can say to us that some weeks or even years ago, we did such and such that was very harmful. If that is something that we have done, we cannot refute it. What is really being said, however, is much deeper and more insidious. It is saying that what we have done in the past has trapped us forever. It is inescapable, it is forever part of us, it defines who we are.

Forgiveness expresses the opposite reality. To forgive a past wrong is to say that we are not reduced to that wrong, but are more than that wrong. That wrong is distinct from who we are, it does not define who we are. As a result, we are not trapped in that wrong, but can move beyond it. As I have said before, we are more than the worst thing that we have ever done, or that has been done to us. In this context to forgive someone–or ourselves–is to free someone from the burden of the past, and so, the subsequent dread of the future, so that we can live creatively in the present.

This is simply another way of saying that our sacredness is deeper than our wrongness. In fact, any wrong we do or that is one to us, can be described precisely as a violation of our sacredness. But it cannot destroy that sacred worth. In this perspective, something is wrong not because it breaks a law, but because it breaks a person, because it violates or goes against the worth or dignity of that person. In fact, it is the conviction of our sacred worth, so hard to feel at times, that allows us to admit any wrongs and to struggle to grow beyond them.

In a similar vein, to forgive another need not imply denying the wrong done not even establish a relationship with them. It is to let go over the hold their script has on us. Otherwise we remain forever linked to their script, often by hatred. Their past becomes our future. As has been said, the first victim of hatred is the one who hates.
The challenge is let go of any toxic links, and to discover our own authentic script from within. It is to realize, perhaps anew, a sacred worth, deeper than all else. It is to uncover our basic orientation to wisdom and compassion. It begins with a compassionate understanding of ourselves which gradually extends in wider and wider circle. It takes into account all our feelings, and even our betrayals, but as contained within and undergirded by our sacred worth.

May you respond to all the challenges of life, but with a deeper awareness of your sacred worth and in accordance with your authentic script.

Norman King
April 10, 2023

Last week I spoke about living from the inside out. This is the journey inward, to be in touch with our inmost self, who we truly are. Then it is the journey outward, finding a way to express that self in words, actions, and way of life. Of course, it is essential to see ourselves not as an isolated self-contained entity, but as a relational, communal and social being. When we speak to another, for example, it should be not be an inflicting of our issues on another, but a sharing and even entrusting aspects of our thoughts, feelings, etc., to another. It is best done within a listening context, within a tuning in to another. The one to whom we speak should affect what we say and how we say it.

A further aspect of this process is to discern who we are beneath our thoughts and feelings, who is the “I” that has these. There is a tendency in our society either to deny certain feelings or to unleash them thoughtlessly. As Richard Rohr has said so perceptively, suffering that is not transformed is transmitted. As mentioned before, there is also the need to allow ourselves to feel all our feelings, but in a safe place. This can be by ourselves, or as shared with a trustworthy other person. Following this step, it is important to attempt to name our feelings as truthfully and accurately as possible. For example, grief may be looked upon as the experience of a deeply felt incompleteness, made permanent by separation or death. In another instance, an unfaced fear or anxiety may lie behind much external arrogance or domination..

A further direction, I believe, is the task of not identifying with our thoughts or feelings, not seeing them as our identity, as who we are. I recall, in teaching, a common reaction of a student to a low mark on a test or assignment. Often they might say, “I’m no good.” Instead of saying to themselves that in one particular part of a course, within a whole program, and within a rather small part of a total lifetime, things did not go as well as expected, as hoped for, or as possible. This is an instance of how, for a time at least, the person’s identity was linked to one incident.

The question them becomes, if we detach our identity from one particular feeling, then who is the person who has, but is not reducible to, that feeling. Feelings are layered, and as we allow ourselves to feel one feeling, another may emerge beneath it. The second feeling may be at least a little closer to the person beneath all the feelings. The many feelings may then come to be seen as separate from the identity of the one beneath and behind them. We are more than and deeper than whatever feelings we have. They tend to shift and pass away, but a core self remains, who need not be trapped in any such feelings.

Another approach is to ask who is the speaker that names us with that feeling. On the societal level, there is a tendency to impose an identity, and make our sense of worth depend on externals–our possessions, our prestige, our power. Much advertising seems to suggest that we need to hide who we are beneath these externals. It suggests that we need to cover up who we are and, consequently, implies that who we are is of little value, so that it needs a disguise.

The question then becomes what we can lose without losing our self. In a class many years ago, an elderly woman told how she and her husband came home one evening to see their house totally engulfed in flames. All their possessions, including family heirlooms and photographs, were destroyed. As they stood there weeping, they said simply but with a profound love: “At least we still have each other.” All externals can be lost, but who we are and the love that flows from who we are remains.

I recall as well a radio program from years ago, named at that time with the non-inclusive title, Man Alive. A woman was interviewed who had been born with several physical issues and who was later disfigured by a fire. She had since acquired a graduate degree in psychology and worked as a counsellor. Her striking words were: “I am not what you see.” None of us is what is seen on the outside. The exception may be when the inner radiance finds some outward expression. I remember seeing a photograph of a 100-year old Inuit woman. While she had wrinkles on wrinkles, there was no other way to describe her except as beautiful.

These examples reflect what I have said week after week. Beneath all else, even if we or others fail to see it, or even if we deny or betray that worth in self or others, there is the fundamental core of value or sacredness that ever remains. It has the quality of a gift insofar as it goes with being a child of the universe, a human being, and a unique person. The challenge is to recognize and name all else within and around us, yet to see our identity in that sacred core self, and to try to leave its imprint in ever widening circles radiating from that core self

Wayne Muller stresses that we must be careful how we name ourselves. If we think we are fragile and broken, we will live a fragile and broken life. If we believe we are strong and wise, we will live with enthusiasm and courage. The way we name ourselves colours the way we live. He adds: “I am certain these names reveal little of our true nature. Beneath the stories, beneath the diagnoses, these are all children of spirit, beings fully equipped with inner voices of strength and wisdom, intimations of grace and light. … Regardless of the shape of the sorrow or victory or grief or ecstasy we have been given, there is a potent inner luminosity that is never extinguished and that is alive in us in this instant.”

May you be in tune with all your feelings, aware of the quality of your relationships, discerning of the identity imposed by the societal culture. Yet may you know ever more deeply the sacred core of who you truly are. And may your find ever more ways to live from and share that core with others and our world.

Norman King
April 03, 2023

Last week I spoke of trusting the unfolding process of life from within ourselves. With the help of others, as well as story, music, and other arts, this process involves uncovering and living from our inner core, our heart, out true home. It lies beneath all the accumulated layers added on by others and by our life experience itself.

Miriam Therese Winter expresses this perspective eloquently. She says that home is a metaphor, and it means to live from the inside out. It is to live from that place within us “where the truth of ourselves and all of creation unobtrusively dwells.” She relates this understanding to music, which flows from the inside into the universe of silences and sounds, an “external revelation of inward reality.”

The same could be said of story and poetry. These express in words what is felt within. One such expression is from the 13th century poet Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” These words suggest to me that our inner place precedes and goes beyond all moral judgements. Or rather, we really come to know people when we sense and respond to the inner person, rather than being stuck at the level of outer words or actions. We respond to the person beyond the words or actions. We respond to who the person is, rather than what they have, say, or do. In other words, we enter the “home,” the home space of another and allow them entry into our home.

Another aspect of Rumi’s thought seems to be that it is a question of going beyond our present thoughts on good and evil to a deeper awareness. I would suggest that we may come to think that something is wrong, not because it breaks a law, but because it breaks a person. Conversely, we may think that something is right, not because it follows the rules, but because it affirms the worth of person. To put it in a slightly different way, we are more than the worst thing that we have ever done or the worst thing that has ever been done to us. Our sacredness is deeper than any brokenness. This inner sacred core, rather than our fears or hostilities, is what calls for outer expression,.

We have suggested before that life is a blend of joy and sorrow, bitter and sweet, light and darkness. Life is a both/and, not an either/or. It is a broken hallelujah or a glory hallelujah despite experiences that arises out of trouble. It is within this context, that we are challenged to find both authentic inner meaning and its outer expression.

While acknowledging and naming the hurt, fear, hostility, and even betrayal that are within us, there is a profound difference between inflicting them upon another or entrusting them to another. In the one case the other person becomes simply a target for unresolved and perhaps unfaced issues. In the latter instance, it is a sharing with another the struggles and vulnerabilities of our life, as an act of trust and caring, and an effort to face and grow from these challenges.

There are times when an outward expression may be a path inward for ourselves or others. One of the most rewarding experiences I have had in teaching came when an adult student told me: “You put into words what I always somehow knew but didn’t know how to say.” Sometimes a creative outward expression can name, unveil, and express what is most interior.

This experience may materialize through conversation, but also through story, music, painting, or other art form. Rumi says: “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” In another place, he writes: “I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” A favourite expression of mine is found in the song, Anthem, by Leonard Cohen. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

May you be more and more in touch with the inner light within you, and live from that light, that home place within you, and may you be able more and more to share that place with others, and contribute to a new society in which the sacred light of everyone is not extinguished but able to shine forth.

Norman King, March 27, 2023