Falling Upward

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 STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE PSYCHE

Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.

Jesus is never upset at sinners (check it out!); he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners!

So the church is both my greatest intellectual and moral problem and my most consoling home. She is both pathetic whore and frequent bride. There is still a marvelous marriage with such a bride, and many whores do occasionally become brides too. In a certain but real sense, the church itself is the first cross that Jesus is crucified on, as we limit, mangle, and try to control the always too big message. All the churches seem to crucify Jesus again and again by their inability to receive his whole body, but they often resurrect him too. I am without doubt a microcosm of this universal church.

You do not fight these things anymore; they have just shown themselves too many times to be useless, ego based, counterproductive, and often entirely wrong. You learn to positively ignore and withdraw your energy from evil or stupid things rather than fight them directly.

Invariably when something upsets you, you have a and strong emotional reaction out of proportion to the moment, your shadow self has just been exposed. So watch for any overreactions or overdenials. When you notice them, notice also that the cock of St. Peter has just crowed!

We should not be surprised that most older people do not choose loud music, needless diversions, or large crowds. We move toward understimulation, if we are on the schedule of soul. Life has stimulated us enough, and now we have to process it and integrate it, however unconsciously. Silence and poetry start being our more natural voice and our more beautiful ear at this stage. Much of life starts becoming highly symbolic and "connecting," and little things become significant metaphors for everything else. Silence is the only language spacious enough to include everything and to keep us from slipping back into dualistic judgments divisive words

Most of us tend to think of the second half of life as largely about getting old, dealing with health issues, and letting go of our physical life, but the whole thesis of this book is exactly the opposite. What looks like falling can largely be experienced as falling upward and onward, into a broader and deeper world, where the soul has found its fullness, is finally connected to the whole, and lives inside the Big Picture.

Much of the work of midlife is learning to tell the difference between people who are still dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you as you really are.