“If we go to the depths of anything, we will begin to knock upon something substantial, ‘real,’ and with a timeless quality to it. We will move from the starter kit of ‘belief’ to an actual inner knowing.” (Richard Rohr Falling Upward)
Today I turn forty. And I want to let you in on a little secret…. I have actually been eagerly awaiting this day for a long time. When I was 37, I was known to say, “I’m almost 40.” I couldn’t wait to get over the hump and enter into this new phase of life. Yes, that’s right. I just said I couldn’t wait to turn forty.
In our family, forty is really a generous mid-life point. So, for me, this is a crossing over to the next half of life. And while I have been richly blessed in the first half of my life in SO many ways—with people, with experiences, with things I have learned—I feel like I am just getting to the good stuff. I am just getting to the good stuff and there is a lot of bad stuff, a lot of “false” stuff that I am frankly ready to shed and say goodbye to.
Many of you know that I experienced a very real spiritual awakening a little over a year ago. It came with freedom, with longing, with new eyes, and it came in the midst of a lot of suffering. This fall, as I looked at 2020, I decided for the first time in my life that I would truly celebrate myself and let myself be celebrated. I declared it “the year of 40.” I thought it would be filled with trips and parties and conferences and all the things my heart longed to do.
I clearly had no idea what was coming…. But God did.
And one of the things He did was direct me to a book that would both give words and context to my current spiritual space and give me hope and direction for the days, months, and years to come. That book was “Falling Upward” by Richard Rohr.
I spent much of December devouring it. Most sentences I had to read several times in order to really grasp the profound truths it contained in them. Pretty much the whole book in underlined and much of my January trip to the monastery was spent typing up 14 pages of notes from it. I did not want to miss a thing. I did not want to forget a thing.
The premise of the book is that there are two halves to our lives here on earth. In the first half, we build our ship, our container. We learn right from wrong. We drink in morality and religion. We decide who we will be faithful to and how we will show that faithfulness. But then something happens. There comes a day when the old answers just don’t cut it. The former ways of being seem empty. We no longer feel comfortable in our old clothes. And those are often the cues that we are getting ready to transition. The next half is calling.
I started feeling this aching when we moved to Georgia 5 years ago. While I have never fully believed I “fit in” anywhere, my sense of feeling like a foreigner became stronger than ever. My theology started changing. My political views started changing. It felt a little like the helium balloons I had spent the last 35 years filling up, the ones that were tied down nice and tight in a way that felt very comfortable, were slowly slipping out of my tight grasp. What once looked like a tidy gumball machine was now looking more like a moving modern work of art in the sky. It felt wild. It felt unsafe.
But as I read Rohr’s words, I realized that the discomfort and the longing I was feeling was not because I had lost my faith, but because I had found it. I realized that the disequilibrium and the loneliness I was feeling was not because I was abandoning the shiny tower of everything I had come to believe, but because what I had come to believe had turned from black and white to color, and the color was allowing me to see things I never realized were there.
My heart was not becoming soft to the Truth in a negative way, but instead in the most positive way. It was becoming soft with grace and with love. I was no longer looking at the world with black and white blinders, but with eyes wide open to the colors of mystery and wonder.
So, as I step into this next half of life, a few extra pounds, deep wrinkles, and gray hairs are a SMALL price to pay for what they, and the wisdom that come with them, are allowing me to wave goodbye to. So, as I say goodbye to the first half of my life, I say goodbye to so many things:
- To living for the applause and approval of others
- To self-doubt and self-deprecation
- To a life aimed at a perfection that is unattainable and ultimately unfulfilling
- To attempting to find my worth in my success in “following the rules”
- To judging others before truly listening to them
- To believing what people say more than what God says
- To myopic seeing and conditional acceptance
These things may have served me well for a time, but that time has passed. There is new wine coming, so new wineskins are needed.
I don’t know if there is a consistent time when this restlessness, this gnawing desire for more comes into human hearts. I think it depends. But according to Rohr, and according to the testimony of my life, it only happens through the fires of suffering. And those of you who have known me in these last 40 years, but especially these last 20 know that I am no stranger to suffering. It has come in different forms and with different levels of intensity, but it is a theme of my life.
But it is true that it is in the suffering, in the brokenness that new life is born:
“The bottom line of the Gospel is that most of us have to hit some kind of bottom before we even start the real spiritual journey. Up to that point, it is mostly religion. At the bottom, there is little time or interest in being totally practical, efficient or revenue generating. You just want to breathe fresh air. The true Gospel is always fresh air and spacious breathing room.” (P. 138)
Even now, as I look at this next year, I know that the suffering is not done, and likely will only get more and more intense and painful as I continue to walk the unique path the Lord has laid out for me.
And yet, I am thankful.
If pain is the entryway into the second half, I will walk through the pain. I am just beginning this new journey, but from what I have seen, I want it. I want it bad! I want it more than anything I have ever wanted!
I want to live a life of grace, grace, and more grace. I want to live a life that is always open to examination, by God and by myself. I want to unlearn the old and put on the new. I want to move toward that true, beautiful self-love, that seeks only His gracious acceptance. I want to live with tension, with mystery, without the relentless struggle to always “be right” or to always “know what is true.” I want to be wooed and moved more by the Beatitudes than by the 10 Commandments. I want to care about the people and things that God most care about. That’s what I want!
So, as I enter this second half of life, which I have only just begun to do, I can only pray that God would continue to work in me to know myself more fully and kindly, to rest more comfortably in His limitless love, and to truly care for all people out of those depths. May I live, what Rohr says is possible in this new place:
“Life is much more spacious now, the boundaries of the container having been enlarged by the constant addition of new experiences and relationships. You are like an expandable suitcase, and you became so almost without your noticing.” (P. 119)
Lord, may you continue to ever expand the suitcase that is my life, so that it will be ready to hold more and more people in compassion and grace. And may your waters fill it so that I may constantly swim in the sweetness of your love.