“There
Is Always Something More to Learn”
Matthew 6:25-33
First Presbyterian
Knowing that we would be worshiping here today amidst these stands of glorious trees made me think of the opening lines of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy. They are among the most famous in literature and go like this:
In the middle of the journey of my
life
I found myself within a dark woods
Where the straight way was lost.
What does Dante intend by the
use of the word “found”? It
has a double meaning, I think. He found
himself within a dark woods in the sense of experiencing existentially a morass
of confusion, despair, and melancholy. That
was where he was located situationally, circumstantially, and emotionally.
But the dark woods, Dante seems to be saying, “where the straight
way is lost,” is also the place where he found himself in terms of
coming to his senses, waking up, and learning valuable lessons about himself and
life.
There is always something
more to learn.
While it is commonplace to say
that we live in the information age and it is true that ninety percent of
everything that human beings ever have known has been discovered in the last ten
years and the pace of new inventions and fresh knowledge is increasing
exponentially, and thus there is always more to learn “out there” in the
world, it is an “inner knowing” about which I want to talk today.
Elizabeth Lesser, in her book
entitled Broken Open, reminds us that philosopher William James
claimed that there are two kinds of people in the world – “Once Born”
people and “Twice Born” people. “Once-Born”
people do not wander from the familiar terrain of who they think they are and
what they believe is expected of them. If
fate, circumstance, misfortune, necessity, or chance push them to the edge of
Dante’s dark woods where the straight way is lost, they will not go in,
but turn back. They will not enter.
“Once-Born” people do not want to risk deviating from the straight
way. They prefer to stay with what
seems safe to them and what is acceptable in the sight of their family and
society. “Once-Born” people
stick with what they know even though they may have a sense of wanting or
needing something more or different in their lives.
There
is always something more to learn, and eschewing the lessons that can be learned
only in the dark woods stunts our growth and stymies our joy.
Lesser imagines a “Once-Born” person waking one morning
with all kinds of disturbing questions about her life:
Is this all there is?
Will I always feel like I do now? Is
there not some greater purpose for me to fulfill?
But, then, she
gets out of bed and ready for work and goes into her day without attending to
those questions arising from within. But
the inattention eventually causes her to turn emotionally and spiritually numb,
or to live with deep and unresolved anger, or to be sad, or continually
unsettled about her life and her place in the world.
No matter who we are, there is always something more to
learn.
A “Twice-Born” person pays attention to the questions
emanating from the soul. Whether
through choice, calamity, or catastrophe, the “Twice-Born” person goes into
the woods, loses the straight way, makes mistakes, suffers loss, and confronts
that which needs to change within himself or herself in order to live a more
authentic life. Illness, betrayal,
the loss of a job, the demise of a dream, divorce, the death of a loved one, a
new relationship, the need to redefine one’s faith – all of these can serve
as points of entry into the dark woods where the straight way is lost but where
we also may find ourselves.
Jesus said, “Those who seek to save their lives will lose
them while those who are not afraid to lose the straight way of their lives will
find life.” There is always
something more to learn.
The journey from being a “Once-Born” to a
“Twice-Born” person requires us to face head on the hard questions and
fearful feelings that inevitably come to us in our lives.
It requires us to enter the dark woods where the straight way is lost.
Some of us come to the edge of the woods and cannot make ourselves go in.
Others of us somehow are able to do so.
To turn back and not to enter is one kind of death for then our lives
ultimately are governed by fear, and emotional fear is often a killer.
To go forward brings another kind of death, but a death that leads to
life, as we are remade and reborn in the crucible of transformation.
Many of us resist the dark woods of our lives until one day
we tire of living according to other peoples’ expectations of us.
We grow weary of the sense that we are just going through the motions in
our lives and are not really living. We
get exhausted from starving our souls or filling the disquietude in our lives
with drink or drugs or food or incessant busyness or by other unhealthy and
unhelpful means. Poet David Whyte
puts it this way: “…after all the struggle and all
the years…you’ve simply had enough of drowning and you want to live and you
want to love and you will walk across any territory and any darkness, however
fluid and however dangerous…” to do so.
There
is always something more to learn.
And we can learn more about ourselves, about life, about God,
about the interconnectedness of all of life and our place and purpose in it, if
we are willing to enter the dark woods where the straight way disappears and go
through it without turning back. Sometimes
we are able to make that journey by ourselves.
Sometimes we need guides or companions along the way.
But if we are to become more fully and truly human and to wake up and to
feel more alive to life, it is a journey we have, soon or late, to make.
Psychology would call it facing our shadows, the demons and dragons from
which we have spent much of our lives running away, for it is there – in the
shadows, in the dark woods of our lives – that we come to ourselves, that we
reclaim those parts of ourselves that we have disowned, disavowed, or set aside
along the way because they have frightened us and learn instead how to integrate
them into our lives, where we learn our lessons, and where finally we become
mature and wise. Robert A. Johnson,
a Jungian psychologist, says that “honoring and accepting one’s
shadow…is whole-making and thus holy and the most important experience of a
lifetime” and
that “until
we have undertaken the task of accepting the shadow within us we cannot be
balanced or whole, for what is hidden never goes away, but merely – and often
painfully – turns up in unexpected places.”
There
is always something more to learn.
I think of Jacob in the Old Testament who famously contended
with his shadow, with his own dark woods, and it was so whole-making and holy
for him that he perceived it to be a kind of wrestling with God from which and
from whom he received a blessing. I
think of the prodigal son who struggled with his shadow, with his own dark
woods, and it was so whole-making and holy for him that he was able to come to
himself and to swallow his pride and to go home again and to be happy there.
I think of Jesus who grappled in the desert with the demons and devils of
his own life, with his own dark woods, and it was so whole-making and holy for
him that he was able to show and offer a manner of living that brings joy and
peace and hope to those who follow his way and thus, also, to the world.
I think of Jesus who embraced his shadow, his own dark woods, and it was
so whole-making and holy for him that he was able to love his enemies and to
pray for those who persecuted him and to walk the way of love no matter the cost
to him and in so doing to cast such a great light that we still are illumined by
it today.
There
is always something more to learn.
Sometimes, of course, that “something more to learn” is
outside of us. We acquire fresh
information we have to assimilate, new technology to which we need to become
acclimated, scientific knowledge from which we can benefit.
But what is most important for us to continue to learn is on the inside
of us. Jesus said, “Seek
ye first the
There
is always something more to learn.
We can spend our lifetimes trying always to look all put
together and shiny. We can travel
only the “straight way” that is deemed acceptable by society’s rules.
But if we do that we shall live only half a life.
We may anesthetize ourselves into believing it is a good life, but how
can a life really be good if we only admit or embrace a part of it?
There
is always something more to learn and much of what we have to learn about ourselves and life
can only be learned by exploring those parts of ourselves that are not so shiny
and put together.
In
the middle of the journey of my life
I found myself within a dark woods
Where the straight way was lost.
I commend to you the dark woods where the straight way is
lost. Letting go of your reliance on
and your confidence in the straight way, you will have a chance finally to trust
God and, in so doing, to find your true self, and to discover your true life.
©
Copyright 2007 First Presbyterian Church