MAY 13 SUNDAY 5-7PM

PARNASSUS BOOKS (3900 HILLSBORO PIKE, GREENHILLS)

$10 AT THE DOOR (PAY ONCE AND COME FOR ALL FOUR EVENTS)

May 13 “Franciscan Mysticism”
July 22 “Richard’s Seven Spiritual Themes”
September 16 “Practicing Contemplation and Paradox”
December 9 “True Self and Risen Christ”

“One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung

The afternoon that Jung speaks of is the second half of your life. For many this begins at forty, for some it may arrive a decade later and for a few old souls a decade earlier. When the second half begins is unimportant. What matters is that the old ways of viewing and relating to life often stop working. In the first half we gain our security and idenity primarily from our accomplishments. These successes act like a container that holds our life together, making us feel secure in a complicated world filled with external pressures. But in the second half this container becomes less important and we may begin to doubt all that we worked so hard to accomplish. We may even doubt the basics that we always knew to be true. Beliefs about the purpose of life and how God fits may change drastically. Jung believes that this is necessary to live the second half of your life with any sense of real meaning. I agree with him wholeheartedly. But sadly there are few voices in our current fear filled culture that agree or see any of this as even relevant. Many see this as crazy, impractical or even sinful. Stick to what you know and the second half will go just fine they tell us. We hear this and are afraid to share our changing sense of identity with almost anyone. We internalize our new desires and deny our intuition. We may even feel incredibly guilty.

If you are in the second half of your life and you can relate to my client or Jung’s words resonate with where you are at then stop feeling guilty. Your changing beliefs and new desires are evidence of the fact that you are alive, growing and not dead! Rather be concerned and check your pulse if the following is true.

- If you turn fifty and your politics are the same as when you were a young adult, my guess is you have grown more rigid.

- If you are in midlife and your holy habits are limited to church attendance on Sunday you are probably afraid to call God your friend.

- If you have been married more than two decades and you still think loving your wife means understanding how women are different than men, my guess is she is not your partner.

- If your children are young adults and you still believe that parenting is about protecting them, my guess is they seldom call you just to hang out.

Is it normal to doubt what you believed in the first half of your life? Is it normal to have dreams for the future that challenge what worked in the first half of your life? My answer is still the same, it’s normal but not typical. Good for you!

We just got back from our vacation to the Great White North. The land of hockey,universal health care, Tim Horton’s and moose icons everywhere. We spent a week in Toronto enjoying family, cooler weather and a safe, clean and exciting big city. What I enjoyed as much as our actual trip are the childhood memories that come flooding back every time I cross the border from Detroit into Canada. The triggers are everywhere. Canadian flags, the tunnel, the downtowns of small villages, the rows of vegetable greenhouses and friendly people who use the expression “eh” at the drop of a hat.

Memories are the product of those things in our past that we felt deeply. Sometimes the emotions were joyful and exciting and othertimes painful and scary. But trust me when I say that if you didn’t feel it you don’t remember it. This is why depressed children have so few memories later in life. I’m always concerned when my clients have no memories of their childhood. Children who feel numb or anxious all the time grow up to be adults with a lot of gaps in their past story.

This is why I have so many wonderful memories of Canada still. This country not even two hours away from where I grew up was a safe place for me. A land where my Grandmother who loved me dearly lived. A place where we didn’t run off to Mc Donalds for lunch but instead sat down to my favorite meals. A world where we didn’t race from place to place in a car but walked downtown to pick up the mail. A town where extended family lived rather than being alone in the suburbs. Canada for me was world where everything slowed down and I had time to feel deeply. In a perfect world this is the type of life every child would experience and as a result grow up happy and emotionally healthy.

Now I know that not every Canadian had this experience growing up. In fact some of them may have lived a childhood as busy and stressful as mine on the other side of the border. But I’m not ready to give up the fantasy. I hope that every time I visit the country of my birth for the rest of my life I am emotionally transported to a safe place. A place where memories that bring me joy and comfort continue to wash over me just because I crossed the border.

So the next time you see me at a hockey game watch me when they play “O Canada”. You’ll see not only a middle aged man standing there but a little boy with a grin on his face. If you look hard enough you’ll see a child who just got a chance to take one more quick trip to a place he loves beyond words.

Rohr begins his book with, “We are a circumference people, with little access to the center. We live on the boundaries of our own lives confusing edges with essence, claiming the superficial as substance. Perhaps the greatest sin of our time is superficiality.” I couldn’t agree with him more.

We are unprepared for life when it smacks us in the face. We really thought we would be different from the rest. We superficially thought we could escape suffering if we adopted the status quo and kept our heads down. As a result we are not acquainted with our Center. We don’t know who we are separate from what others expect of us and we believe that God is out there controlling the universe. The last time I checked the world is too evil and in too much pain for me to believe that he’s in control of everything. But I do believe God is at our Center. Our churches have taught us what to “believe” and how to live moral lives. But they have seldom taught us how to pray. The only way I see people connect with their Center is through prayer, love, or suffering. When you don’t know how to pray and the family you grew up in didn’t love you very well you are left with suffering as your teacher.

What if we had the courage to listen to what wisdom teachers have to share about life and suffering? Rather than forgetting to read the part in the Gospels where Jesus says to “live for today because tomorrow has enough problems of it’s own.” We are too “Christian” to benefit from Buddhist teaching that always begins with life is suffering. We shy away from books like “The Road Less Traveled” because Peck’s first words are “life is difficult.”

Now is the time to prepare yourself for suffering. The best way is by finding your Center. Few of us were taught how to do this so you are not alone. Take some time to walk in nature. Find the time to sit with a journal and honestly write about how you “feel” about your life. Take a yoga class and listen to what your body is telling you. Find a therapist and heal the wounds of your past that keep you from befriending your Center. Most of the world lives on the edges with little access to the Center. Choose to live your life differently. Be prepared!

Image by: Pakorn

Just got off the phone with my youngest son. He was calling from the San Francisco Bay Area. Ask me what I’d pay for 70 degree days and cool evenings right about now. Not that I’m envious or anything. He was taking a dinner break before winding up a nine hour day studying Gestalt Therapy in his graduate program there. He has an intense but exciting week ahead of experiential training. Fritz Pearls would love the way they are going about this section of his course work! My son is living my dream. I often find myself hoping that he realizes how fortunate he is to be in this kind of Counseling Psychology program. Like I said, not that I’m envious or anything.

The fact is that he is as grateful as he can be given his age and stage in life. Isn’t it easy as a parent to judge given what we know today? Somehow we expect that our young adult children should have our perspective on life. Really not fair when I stop and realize that I have thirty years of experience on him. And then there’s all the mistakes I made along the way that has given me this slice of wisdom. Sure is easy to forget that sitting where I’m at today. God forgive me when I forget to share with him my screw ups along the way. When I neglect to share the whole of my story it comes off as judgement rather than encouragement.

I’m reminded of what a wonderful son I have when I reflect back on our trip together to San Francisco three months ago. He was about to wind up his first year of grad school so we left a few days early to take in the San Francisco International Film Festival. Six indie films from around the world in three days. Combine that with visits to some of the most incredible eating establishments on the West Coast and I’ve pretty much died and gone to heaven! Even better is the fact that it was his idea for me to join him as a belated birthday gift. I don’t take for granted that not every 25 year old son wants to hang out with his 55 year old father. To top it off we got along famously and only had one minor skirmish that I can recall. Too much of a good thing can make anybody lose their cool.

So as I said earlier, he’s living my dream. And why not? If I can just remember to let him do it his way, giving him the space he needs to make both mistakes and succeed. After all this is his story not mine. So easy for me to forget that minor issue. When I’m thinking clearly about all of this I’m just grateful for the chances I still have to be a part of his exciting story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve already read the chapter in my mind about he and I spending three incredible days together watching movies together in my favorite city in the world. Thanks, Adam, for thinking to include me in this part of your story.

So we are on our way to a wedding where my fiancee, Diane, will be singing. Driving along in the truck she looks at me and asks me to stop at the drug store. As we pull in she tells me she has cramps and that it is her time of the month. I feel bad for her but didn’t anticipate what came next. She asks if I could go in and pick up some sanitary napkins, the ones with “wings.” Now you need to understand that I had never seen one of these flying objects, let alone purchased them! But being the devoted husband-to-be I made my way into the store with much fear and trepidation. Standing there in the check out line the box in my mind was enormous. The kind you buy at Costco for a family of six sisters. Needless to say, I was embarrassed.

As we arrive at the church I can’t stop thinking about what just happened and that I am soon to marry a real woman with real female needs. What have I gotten myself into? We are now sitting in the second row of the church waiting for the ceremony to begin. She now turns and says she forgot something and could I “go get them.” Did I actually hear her right? Leave the church and go to the truck now? She looks miffed and says under her breath to hurry before the wedding starts. As I approach the truck I am trying to figure out how to get one of those flying objects into the church without everyone seeing me. I then remember that I am wearing a suit and this is the reason God created that inside pocket for such occasions. So I rip open the box and pop one large sanitary napkin with “wings” in my inside pocket.

I return to my seat and descretely sit down next to my beautiful girlfriend. For the first time since the drug store I’m finally feeling pretty good about myself. Mission accomplished. Then she anxiously looks at me and says she needs them now! So I reach into my inside pocket and begin to pull out the flying object. She looks at me in horror and asks what in the world are you doing?! Where are my glasses? I have to sing any minute now. You actually thought I wanted that? And what am I supposed to do with it sitting here in front of God and everybody! The term “idiot” was never verbalized but I’m pretty sure that was her word bubble. Still to this day I don’t remember if she ever got her glasses before she sang.

Fortunately we still got married later that summer. You can’t say I didn’t give her fair warning. She doesn’t scare away easily. Now 33 years later I’m much less anxious and only occasionally naive as it relates to matters of the heart. I suppose that wedding experience has become a metaphor for our marriage. She still shocks me with her honesty and I still screw up. So what’s the point you ask? The point is that we all start married life both nervous and naive. You aren’t alone. The remedy is simple but harder to apply. Give it time, be quick to apologize and most importantly never lose the ability to laugh at yourself.

Photo by: tokyoboy