Yesterday I was under the weather and spent much of the day resting or sleeping. I arose today feeling much better, more here, more awake. This led me to ponder the process of awakening, and the state of being awake.

It is on the playground of the poet, especially the mystic, that this concept has been explored. There is a book I’ve just learned of (oh, the Internet!) that I would be interested in reading: Mystical Delights, which features material from a variety of poets.

I also recently acquired I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology, featuring the writing of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Here’s what has caught my attention today:

A human being has not only a body but also a face. A face cannot be grafted or interchanged. A face is a message, a face speaks, often unbeknown to the person. Is not the human face a living mixture of mystery and meaning? We are all able to see it, and are all unable to describe it. Is it not a strange marvel that among so many hundreds of millions of faces, no two faces are alike? And that no face remains quite the same for more than one instant? The most exposed part of the body, it is the least describable, a synonym for an incarnation of uniqueness. Can we look at a face as if it were a commonplace?

It is in the face that we witness awakening. The eyes widen, the countenance brightens. We are drawn, I think, to animated faces, to ones that suggest openness and welcome. In this hurly-burly world, I also think we don’t often look at faces, much less see them. Could this be why we often experience alienation, an unwanted sense of anonymity, and why we skim across life’s surface?

Hmmm. Perhaps today I will take time to look, to make the connection. That’s my experiment for the day.

I met my brother for lunch today, sans food. As we walked along Town Lake on this blustery afternoon, we traversed the terrain of religion. This came up because I asked if he’d been reading my personal blog, in which I’ve been exploring my own spiritual questions of late. He had, and he commented on how the pendulum seemed to be swinging back again.

What he meant by that is that throughout my 40 years, my participation in religion has ebbed and flowed. When it flowed, I could be very intense and dogmatic, to the point of alienating family and friends. During the ebb times, I focused on non-theistic approaches to meaning, such as psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and learning about other religions as a student but not a practitioner.

My brother commented that the spiritual path is akin to a spiral. To return to an old solution that didn’t work for a still unresolved problem is unconstructive. One hopes that time and experience has brought wisdom, so that familiar cultural structures can be seen and used differently. In the search for truth, his position is “one river, many wells.” (He was drawn to this phrase from a book by Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths). I like that metaphor. I furthered it by adding that one needs a bucket to draw the water. I have explored many religions, but I tend to return to the one with which I am most familiar, that I’ve known since childhood. It is the well I know best. The vocabulary of this religion is the bucket. What has changed, however, is that I no longer try to convince people that my well is the well, and I certainly understand that the well is not the river. Nor do I reject a drink when offered from the well of another. In fact, I am honored to participate in the drawing of water from other wells. I have attended a Passover seder, a Hindu temple ceremony, and Buddhist meditations with an open mind and heart. These events have deepened my experience of life and the divine.

When clients ask about my spiritual beliefs, I tend to focus on the concern or curiosity that prompts the question. In essence, my profession is spiritual work. One of my tasks is to honor each person and be sensitive to the paradigms and symbols that help him or her create meaning. To advocate my own religious beliefs as “the one right way to Truth” is, to me, a form of violence. Why? Because in the therapy relationship, the client is vulnerable, entrusting her or his most private self to me. Whether I want it or not, my role confers power on me; it is my duty not to misuse it. When a person seeks validation for his or her own beliefs outside of self, especially from a person they hold in high esteem, they are at risk. And so I work from an inclusive, ecumenical position.

To that end, I have also added a number of links to the mental health resources list in the right column. You will see information on various psychological theories, including links to sites that approach counseling & personal development from within a particular religion’s framework. If you know of other links (because I know this list is not inclusive, as I have not searched on all religions yet), please let me know.

We live in a fast-forward world. Do you ever feel rushed and yet always behind? Exceed the speed limit when you drive? Do you get frustrated when you have to wait in line? Do you go to bed wound up, have trouble falling asleep, and then wake up tired? When you drive, do you tailgate others, flash your lights, pass often, complain, and gesture at other drivers? Do you skip meals or hurry through them? Do you multi-task frequently? Do you feel as though there just isn’t enough time?

If any of these questions can be answered “yes” by you, it’s worth paying attention to this state of affairs. The intensity of your pace of life may be hastening your aging and ultimate demise. And you don’t enjoy the time you have, to boot.

There are many techniques for dealing with this situation.
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“Changing Metaphors of the Self: Implications for Counseling,” by Marie Hoskins and Johanna Leseho, Journal of Counseling and Development, January/February 1996, Vol. 74, pp. 243-252.

The nature and character of the self can be described in many metaphors. This article explores the variety of metaphors used, first examining the traditional and then the postmodern metaphors. Finally, the authors explore the implications these have for counseling. Traditional metaphors for self include: the unitary self and the integrated self. The unitary self concept contends that the self is a central core which remains unchanged throughout life. The goal of life is to remove the outer protective layers gained as defenses from life’s trials to discover the inner true self. The integrated self, on the other hand, focuses on combining all aspects of self cohesively, and not in shedding all undesirable aspects of a person’s thinking, feeling, and behavior. It involves the reconciliation of opposites to create the “True Self,” or “Higher Self.”

Postmodern metaphors for self include: the narrative self, possible selves, the empty self, the internalized self, the community of selves, and the dialogical self. The narrative self is described as a fluid, evolving character in a continual process of becoming which is impacted and shaped by the surrounding culture in which it lives. Possible selves are, in essence, the cognitive bridges that connect the “now” self with the future. They are a person’s schemas or “working self-concept” for what one might become. They incorporate past and present experience as a means of creating future selves, while at the same time future possible selves are used to evaluate and define the present self. The empty self arises from a self which is divorced from a sense of historical past or spiritual presence, a hollow person without a sense of purpose and meaning in life.
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