When we observe infants and small children, we may notice their efforts to learn to crawl, to walk to talk, to learn. They exhibit a tremendous drive, however unconsciously, to grow and develop in all these ways. We may also notice how they respond to smiles, to affection, to genuine caring, and how they shy away from coldness, indifference, and hostility.
Recently, we spoke of loneliness and solitude. On the one hand, loneliness involves a sense of disconnection and not belonging. On the other hand, creative solitude is the experience of being quietly at home with ourselves in a safe and silence space. In the beginnings of solitude, there may be a sense of uneasiness. Gordon Cosby has expressed it well, in a manner akin to that of Henri Nouwen. “Silence,” he writes, “will put us in touch with yearnings, anxieties, pain, despair, envy, competition, and a host of other feelings that need to be put into words if we are to move toward a place of centeredness and come into possession of our lives. The fact is that most of us have an incredible amount of unfaced suffering in our histories that has to be looked at and worked through.”
Dag Hammarskjold has written strikingly of this experience of silence in solitude in his journal, Markings. “The longest journey is the journey inwards; of one who has chosen their destiny, who has started upon the quest for the source of their being.”
In this journey within solitude, we may ask what lies beneath the array of feelings, the mindsets, the presuppositions, all the cultural baggage that has been imposed by our background, our society, our culture. The above example of the child suggests that it is perhaps a profound longing from our inmost core. The experience of the child may also reveal the nature of this longing. It appears to be a longing for life itself, for its unfolding in growth; a longing for understanding and meaning; a longing for love. Perhaps it may be summed up as a longing for home, a longing to be at home to ourselves, which in turn makes possible being at home to one another..
Keeping busy, running to externals, losing ourselves in distractions, is a way of running from ourselves, of being, so to speak, homeless. It may well be rooted in fear, a fear that to journey within may uncover only emptiness. Yet, if we have a sacred worth, we need not fear who we are, or look to an outside authority to rescue us from ourselves, or tell us what to do. Rather we may gradually make the discovery that who we are at our inmost core is of worth and trustworthy. This uncovering may require the clearing away of the debris of imposed and inauthentic images and scripts and worldviews.
This understanding is, I believe, the core of the Narcissus story, It is the challenge to discover an image of ourselves as lovable. It seems also to be the heart of the story of the Prodigal Son. After many wrong turns, he discovers a sacredness within himself, one that is deeper and remains despite any brokenness. As Meister Eckhardt puts it:”There is a place is us that has never been wounded.”
We may then look to others, including literature, music, and the other arts, not to tell us what to do, but to help us discover, or rather uncover, and name who we are. As we noted, there is an immense longing within us: for awareness, love, meaning, beauty, and so much else. It may also be described as a longing for home: a longing to be present to who we truly are and to one another as we all truly are.
Our very sacredness can instill in us the hope that this longing is not in vain, that our lives do have a lasting meaning, a lasting worth and purpose. In this sense that meaning is to struggle gradually to move beyond fear to love, beyond despair to hope, beyond resentment to gratitude. In this process, we are especially assisted by those who genuinely care.
May you come to find a home within yourselves, and so also, become a home to one another.
Norman King, August 29, 2024.
