meine Rumschpringe
Spot on, right on this morning, with Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr meditating about the inner imperatives that support and challenge me in this second half of my life. Twenty years growing up, twenty years out of water as a Navy officer, forty years in a life to which I knew a vocation before I was ten years old and entertained for another ten years before opting to rebel and ditching it. But ten to forty, thirty years hooked and played on the line before being landed.
Two greatest life moments, my first day of seminary in early fall 1980, and the mid-summer 1984 day we arrived in Apalachicola, both times, overwhelming feelings of home at last, home at last, thank God almighty, home at last.
Fr. Richard's meditation which, along with a couple other things, I read at three o'clock this morning before going back to bed, is copy and pasted below, which his site graciously permits. Funny, interesting, good, apt and helpful that he cuts life in two pieces, because it fits exactly how I cut mine. Half for escape and test, longer but in fact and Time not unlike the Rumschpringe of Amish youth who leave home and go off to run around until they either come home or stay gone. I came home. The second half has been characterized as a Time of peace with self. No matter what comes and goes, day in and year out, including the sometimes near despair of both life and hurrication, I know that I am, and who and what. I did not do what I expected or what was expected of me, I simply found my place and came home.
Here's Fr Richard's meditation
Individuation
Two greatest life moments, my first day of seminary in early fall 1980, and the mid-summer 1984 day we arrived in Apalachicola, both times, overwhelming feelings of home at last, home at last, thank God almighty, home at last.
Fr. Richard's meditation which, along with a couple other things, I read at three o'clock this morning before going back to bed, is copy and pasted below, which his site graciously permits. Funny, interesting, good, apt and helpful that he cuts life in two pieces, because it fits exactly how I cut mine. Half for escape and test, longer but in fact and Time not unlike the Rumschpringe of Amish youth who leave home and go off to run around until they either come home or stay gone. I came home. The second half has been characterized as a Time of peace with self. No matter what comes and goes, day in and year out, including the sometimes near despair of both life and hurrication, I know that I am, and who and what. I did not do what I expected or what was expected of me, I simply found my place and came home.
Here's Fr Richard's meditation
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Week Twelve
Growing in Christ
Individuation
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
I first learned about the two halves of life from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875–1961). Today we’ll hear from a Jungian analyst, James Hollis, who is saying the same thing I am trying to say, but better. Hollis writes:
The second half of life presents a rich possibility for spiritual enlargement, for we are never going to have greater powers of choice, never have more lessons of history from which to learn, and never possess more emotional resilience, more insight into what works for us and what does not, or a deeper, sometimes more desperate, conviction of the importance of getting our life back. . . .
Just what are those inner imperatives that rise to support us and challenge us in the journey of the second half of life? Perhaps Jung’s most compelling contribution is the idea of individuation, that is, the lifelong project of becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be—what [God] intended, not the parents, or the tribe, or, especially, the easily intimidated or inflated ego.
While revering the mystery of others, our individuation summons each of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery, and become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call our life. So often the idea of individuation has been confused with self-indulgence or mere individualism, but what individuation more often asks of us is the surrender of the ego’s agenda of security and emotional reinforcement, in favor of humbling service to the soul’s intent. . . .
The agenda of the first half of life is predominantly . . . framed as “How can I enter this world, separate from my parents, create relationships, career, social identity?” Or put another way: “What does the world ask of me, and what resources can I muster to meet its demands?” But in the second half of life . . . the agenda shifts to reframing our personal experience in the larger order of things, and the questions change. “What does the soul ask of me?” “What does it mean that I am here?” “Who am I apart from my roles, apart from my history?” . . . If the agenda of the first half of life is social, meeting the demands and expectations our milieu asks of us, then the questions of the second half of life are spiritual, addressing the larger issue of meaning.
The psychology of the first half of life is driven by the fantasy of acquisition: gaining ego strength to deal with separation, separating from the overt domination of parents, acquiring a standing in the world. . . . But then the second half of life asks of us, and ultimately demands, relinquishment—relinquishment of identification with property, roles, status, provisional identities—and the embrace of other, inwardly confirmed values.