I discovered very early, perhaps as early as age ten, that if I used my sense of humor in social situations, it took the edge off any feelings of apprehension that almost certainly came. In fact, my grab bag of social survival tricks held but two items guaranteed to stave off the unsteady nerves of my unpredictable youth: music and humor.
Anyone who discovers the power of off-the-wall humor early and the adulation that can come from it also learns that it can become very quickly like sand in the eye of one’s developing emotional life as well. When listening was advisable, I’d be making impressive bodily noises. When I should have been participating in something central to either a school project or family undertaking, I was too busy impressing strangers with jokes well beyond my ken. Usually this was because I’d learned them from the adults with whom I lived, moved and had my being.
The tools of musical ability and a facility with humor (often less than family-oriented!) provided a double-edged sword of likeability and courage for a youngster a little shy, and low on the self-confidence meter. However, they also became convenient places to hide from the gaze of those who simply asked to see the real me even in the midst of my fluttery guts, knocking knees and doubting mind. The same things that brought some measure of courage often stole my peace in the same act.
Concurrent with these adolescent discoveries was another, deeper, more elusive one. Into my limited youth-survival-grab-bag was added one more tool. Let’s call it historic-sacred-place revivification. When nerves or troublesome lack of self-awareness denied the inner solace I needed to survive, I’d look for old churches to be open (well, as old as something can be in Calgary, Alberta!) where I could sit and soak in their dank and musty mystique. Her stone cloak, sown in the fabric of singing, seeking souls who had also found their succor there would alight upon my shoulders. With her refracted light and symbolic riches she would whisper to me all I needed to hear. Sometimes I could almost hear the hymnic praises rising, feel the baptismal waters soothing another into Kingdom oneness, and taste the bread and wine mingled in their satiating salvific goodness.
In those places, I felt no urgency to tell anyone any jokes. There, I was one with…something. Someone? With myself. The ancient elements of God’s place, power and people united to present me new and alive to the world. I would forge back into the teeming wild refreshed and invigorated, often wiping my eyes still wet from mystified gratitude.
The Old Testament Jeremiah once proclaimed: “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16 NRSV). Although old churches are no guarantee of the “ancient path,” they can help to guide us there. They did so with me. Too many times to mention.
I still fall into the same easy hiding places now at age fifty as I did then; with more sophistication, I suppose, and a little more nuance, understatement, and subtlety. But basically the same game of hide and seek. Now, however, upon seeing the face of God through sandstone walls dripping and heavy with the prayerful imprints of other saints whose corporate praises yet sing, I have learned to rest. To heed their hymning voices and, through their joyous sound, hide no more, but come out into the light where Someone is waiting.
How are you hiding from your own shadow in less than helpful support structures?
What ancient place or practice might be helpful for you to be found today?
Robert Alan Rife
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I appreciate your honesty here, Rob. I’m sure many will relate to your chosen game of hide and seek. My game was comprised of burying my head in books while keeping my ears open to the conversations happening around me, especially those among adults. Sure signs of an Enneagram 5 at even a young age!
Actually, Christianne, that shows sure signs of a spiritual companion, on your part! As any Enneagram study will attest, those things that make us uniquely who we are can also stand in the doorway to our own emergence. It’s a spiritual catch-22!
“Ask for ancient paths”. Hmmm. I have not heard nor seen this scripture passage in that way before. I suppose what this is saying, what you are saying is that truth transcends time and space. If we are connected…we are never unconnected. The communion of saints, and timeless ancient practices invite me now to sup with all of the saints.
How am I hiding? Presently I am still in a deep freeze or desert experience (depending on the climate) and it needs to be so until it does it’s work. So this is why I have only been able to survive with a few Anam Cara and as you state, The Communion of Saints. The invitation for me will be to let go of the “safety” of the desert so that I can act. I remember how hard this was for Little Francis who wanted to stay in a cave forever, until he realized he was being called out into the streets to rebuild the church there. But I also think its just as futile to rush into the world haphazardly without the desert experience. There, it is so easy to be led by ego. I have to say…it still feels a bit frightening. Thank you for the nudge Rob. I hear you.
Val, I suppose I’m stretching Jeremiah’s prophecy here a little to be inclusive of my idea of ancient places that contain ancient voices for present and future purposes. I cannot understate the power of such thin place experiences in my journey. Rae and I once sat inside the roofless confines of Tintern Abbey, Wales and simply cried because the very stones sang out in cries of anguish, prayers of thanksgiving and songs of praise too loud for our unprepared ears to hear. Heaven was simply too close; “too hot to handle” as it were. Those experiences nourish me to this day.
You know Rob, I don’t know why the very walls of monasteries and old church buildings invite us to the sacred as they do but it never ceases to amaze or affect me. Always a challenge though, is to take it in for what it is and they realize it too…is just an icon for the real deal. But I am still very curious as to why these places seem to have walls that speak and pray and hold us…in transcendent ways.
Val, you’ve always been really good at reminding me and others that, despite the power of such places to speak and prod and sometimes rebuke, they’re still iconic in terms of being invitations to find the sacred everywhere and in every time…the sacrament of the present moment. Practicing God’s presence.
Joan Chittister gets it with her title AND ministry “Monastery of the Heart”. Oh how I love that. My dream is to utilize both in the world. To open all monasteries for anyone to pray, be and still. Then to live out the monastic in life and in the heart. To me, that is real live church. Yes, it is.
And as you say…this is Ancient Future. It is the praxis and pedagogy of both Francis of Assisi and Hildegard of Bingen. Lord, help us. St. Hildegard and St. Francis, pray for us.
Francis and Hildegard, both of them mystics, both of them artists, both of them prophets. Yeah, I can buy this!