BEING STILL AND STILL MOVING

Reflecting Further on my Ongoing Midlife Journey

I am using these words of T.S. Eliot quoted in an earlier post to open these reflections that continue, broaden, deepen, and dovetail with that same earlier post located below.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

(T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”)

From Confusion to Fusion

T.S. Eliot’s (1971) powerful tapestry of words gives me a perfect backdrop for this reflection. It conjures up images that seem impossibly irreconcilable: being old and being explorers, being still and still moving, intensity in the midst of desolation, and endings as beginnings.

Eliot strikes at the heart of the paradoxical situation that middle adulthood essentially is all about. Eliot puts me right into the field marked by a need for a fusion of opposites – the arena of my midlife self and the seemingly contradictory changes and challenges it offers.

Fusion, I must say, began with some confusion. As I began stepping onto that initially dreaded land of the “experienced,” the territory of the so-called mentoring group, those who are considered “senior” partners in whatever human enterprise they find themselves in, a bewildering array of changes began to take place in my life. As I was pushing past 40, I knew I was in my midlife transition stage (Levinson, 1978). The frenetic pace I was keeping at work, the energy I was putting into so many initiatives, the “edifice complex” that was keeping me busy all day, most days, as I ran myself weary from one activity to another, the many more plans I had on the drawing board, having been given authority and power quite early on in my “career” – everything that for me, then, seemed “brilliant and outstanding,” at some point, began to fray at the edges.

The fabric of my life – or what I thought it was – was beginning to take on a new “structure” (Levinson, 1978, p. 41, 61). I had what most men in their late thirties aspired for – advancement, affirmation, position, power and concomitant prestige. I was accorded a much-coveted position of leadership and authority. By 38, having occupied various posts and earned a postgraduate degree abroad, and rewarded with two concurrent and even more prestigious posts, I had “become my own man” (p. 144). I had arrived. Or so I thought.

Dark Cold and Empty Desolation

The appellation “flourishing forties” (Sheehy, 1999) could not have been more apt for me. The much-sought-after “culminating event” (Levinson, 1978, p. 31) rang more than true for me as I basked under the glow of relative success and popularity. I felt high up on the ladder. Being an avid and regular mountain trekker, I compared my life to the exhilaration of being on the summit of some mountain, on top of the world, as it were.

But it did not take long for me to feel the pull of the more, the higher, the better, the nobler, even as I also felt dragged by disillusionment and disappointment. A crisis soon loomed in the horizon of what, up till then, I thought was an illusion-free adulthood. Coming as I was from the “morning and spring” of my life, (Jung, 1933) busy as I was with my search for “individuation,” that crisis precipitated a bewildering “slide into darkness” (Wicks, 2003). A situation similar to the one I alluded to earlier in an earlier post has once again brought me face to face with the need for what Levinson refers to as “de-illusionment” (Levinson, 1978, p. 192). A certain erosion of trust on my part and that of others has once more led me to come to grips with more than just the crisis of limits. It had led me through my own desert experience, to the “dark cold and empty desolation” of being suddenly considered a pariah by those who were not exactly sympathetic to my personal life-dream. And it had to happen just when I thought I had gone past the midlife transition stage without glitches, just when I have reasons enough to believe that I have in some sense “arrived” with hardly any scratches.

I am staring what Levinson seems to be referring to as a “marker event” in the face (Levinson, 1978, p.54).

That “marker event” of what I still feel is a personal rejection has again catapulted me to a personal Passover replete with my own figurative unleavened, tasteless bread dipped in the bitter herb of disappointment and disillusionment.

From Fusion to Integration

A sudden “reversal of fortune,” on second thought and deeper reflection, actually does me good. In my mind, I have always known with the New Testament letter writer that “here we have no lasting city” (Hebrews 3:14). Conceptually, I agreed with Jung who said, that in the autumn of a man’s life, “man’s values and even his body tend to undergo a reversal into the opposite” (1933, p. 107). From college and on into postgraduate work, I have always subscribed to developmentalists like Erikson, who thought of psychological balance as a fusion of opposites: trust and mistrust, autonomy and a sense of doubt, intimacy and isolation, etc.

But my experience of rejection leads me now, to more than just a superficial understanding of Jung’s and Erikson’s ideas of wholeness as a mere fusion of opposites. This midlife issue that is before me, I would like to think, continues to bring me to the heart of what integration really stands for, what midlife individuation is all about - a change in the whole area of relationships with myself, the world, and others (Levinson, 1978, p. 195). I know I am at the crossroads of Erikson’s “generativity and stagnation” stage. I am face to face with the famous polarities of midlife individuation (pp.197-198). But I am realizing very gradually that this process of individuation is never an either/or situation, nor is it a shuttling back and forth the two extremes, now acting this way, now acting that way, in a mutually exclusive sort of way, but more akin to an acceptance of mystery in one’s life, the capacity to live with paradox, more like the ability to “have patience with everything unresolved and try to love the very questions themselves” (Rilke, 1934).

This crisis, like others that took place before, is leading me into the heart of the need for me to go from mere fusion towards full integration.

Relinquishing and Receiving

Levinson (pp. 197-198) spoke of only four polarities that needed to be worked through: the young/old polarity, destruction/creation polarity, masculine/feminine polarity, and the attachment/separateness polarity. He spoke of the need for “resolution” of each of the four. Coming as they do, more or less at the same time frame as Erikson’s seventh psychosocial stage of development called generativity versus stagnation, and given the stage’s central issue as that of coming to terms with one’s own mortality (Jacques, cited in Levinson, 1978, p.196), the consequent call towards interiority (Neugarten, cited by Levinson, p.196), towards a gentle turning inward to the self, all lend themselves more closely to notions of spiritual growth and faith development.

The crises that I faced, and still face, as I navigate through midlife brought me, and still bring me, right into the core of Levinson’s fourfold polarities, Kohlberg’s (1984) Postconventional stage of morality based on Universal Ethical Principles, Erikson’s (1963) generativity versus stagnation stage, and Fowler’s (1981) 5^th and 6^th stages, namely conjunctive faith and universalizing faith respectively. For many years since my ordination, I have been occupied with mentoring tasks as a counselor and teacher. I felt generative and productive in the various pursuits I undertook as a superior and as a clergyman. Though a celibate living in the context of religious life, I was gradually finding wholeness in a relatively happy and well-adjusted big seminary community which I both “fathered” and “mothered” in a sense through the charism of leadership. I was cognizant of my “need to be needed” (Erikson, 1963, p. 266) and I felt on the whole fulfilled to be “establishing and guiding the next generation” (p. 267). Generativity for me assumed a variety of forms, from counseling and teaching young people, planting hundreds of trees, to constructing new buildings and organizing three non-governmental organizations to help the poor members of the surrounding communities where I was. I lived the equivalents of “productivity and creativity” (p. 267). My “life structure” (Levinson, 1978, p. 193) felt like it was pretty well set even as I went through my midlife transition, that is, until the crisis set in.

When that happened, I knew that Levinson’s “resolution” tasks (p. 198) were not sufficient by themselves. I knew I needed to do more than just grapple with the four polarities. That was when Erikson and Fowler particularly proved insightful and helpful. Erikson taught me that focusing solely on “generativity,” as I did in those earlier frenetic years, was not what integration is all about. I realized that I also needed some form of “stagnation” if I were to weather through the crisis. I realized I needed also some “fallow time” to sift things through, to pause awhile and mull over life in general and to restructure it along broader and deeper lines that cannot be answered for solely by success and achievement. Fowler (1981) taught me that growth entailed moving away from a dichotomous “either/or” form of knowing towards one that is more “dialogical” (p.185), one that is able to see the many sides of an issue simultaneously, one that sees lasting value and truth even in the “sacrament of defeat” (p. 198). Fowler touched me immensely as I grappled with losses big and small, but which opened me to the ever-expanding vistas of love, justice, and the call to social responsibility and human solidarity.

My slide into darkness has brought me, and still affords me, the possibility to rise once more into a certain newness and freshness of perspective. The path towards integration now looks more like a journey with “two crucial and difficult moves, relinquishment and receiving” (Brueggemann, 1986, p.3). Like the Biblical prophets, I feel like being called to go beyond performing mere roles, and help deliver people out of stifling self-centeredness and barren self-serving commitments. But that relinquishment and receiving has to happen to me first. I realize now I have to relinquish so much in order to receive a whole lot more.

Naming the Ghosts that Haunted Me

This “dark night” that I began to experience with the onset of my crisis, helped in no small measure by my Christian faith and my training and total life experience, led me to identify some illusions that I was clinging to for dear life. Two of the ways by which I tried to bolster myself during these confusing times were what Sheehy calls RAMM and SNAG (Sheehy, 1999, pp. 69-71). I was, and still partly am, that “resurgent angry macho man (RAMM),” and the “sensitive new age guy (SNAG).” At times, I foundd myself often dwelling on my losses and defeats. I saw myself repeatedly rehashing in my mind the affront and the perceived “injustice” done to me. My resentment showed the extent of what appears to be my narcissistic injury, and forgiveness didn’t come easy in my heart. My anger and touchy sensitivity literally kept me snagged and snarled in many senses. Like St. Paul, I found myself in between the horns of a dilemma, “for I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Romans 7:19).

With therapy and a whole lot of enlightened reflection, I am becoming adept at pinning down the issues behind my low grade resentment at life and the world. I gradually realize the extent to which I hitch my self-definition and my self-esteem on external realities, not excluding power and position. A great deal of my self-image, I now realize, is tied up to my role, or the roles I do, as perceived by people around me. The fact that I have been given such roles early on in my early adulthood all through the midlife transition years may have led me to put my midlife transition issues on hold for some time. When the “marker event” came, everything came rushing down on me with full force, thus releasing the highly defensive stances of my vulnerable-sensitive self.

I found myself as the epitome of what Dostoevsky’s character of the Grand Inquisitor in his Brothers Karamazov (1990) says about men in general – that they have always been attracted to “magic, mystery, and authority” (p. 255, cited by Yalom, 2003). I was in search for illusions, that is, magic (or “miracle” in the aforecited translation). In the same way, I was always in search for answers, instead of “loving the questions themselves.” And authority stood for the prestige that I thought I was entitled to.

The stagnation pole of Erikson’s seventh stage now assumes the form of a stepping down from power, and taking on only teaching and mentoring roles, directing retreats and conducting seminars for various groups. I know, by experience that, sooner than I think, the stagnation phase would revert back to the pole of generativity as I am sure to find immense fulfillment in doing what I now know, I really love to do: writing, teaching, counseling, and preaching.

A deeper reflection on Fowler makes me examine the foundations and moorings of my faith and now find myself hovering between stage 5 and stage 6, conjunctive and universalizing faith, respectively.

A Pilgrimage of the Heart: Faith to the Rescue

As I get to the process of de-illusionment, and coming to terms gradually with the backlog of midlife issues that have come tumbling down on me, a concomitant reflection on my life of faith proves beneficial. I find myself beyond being categorical and monolithic in many ways. I realize that “faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart” (Heschel, in Dresner, 2002, p. 15). There is more openness to truth in me no matter where it comes from, and I have noticed my ever-growing passion and commitment to justice and solidarity. As a professor of Moral Theology, I find these realizations tying up with what appears to be the stage of moral development that I find myself in, if I were to use that model of Kohlberg as the only model – the stage of Universal Ethical Principles (Kohlberg, 1984, pp.173-175). For a long time now, I know I have moved from a rule-oriented towards a principle-oriented moral reasoning that values persons never as means but ends in themselves. I have long graduated from that narrow definition of moral as legal, and I knew that, though there are some moral absolutes, their application in concrete, and in vivo can never be absolute in every case. The symbols and rites of my Catholic faith tradition have become more than just meaningful to me but fostering them, celebrating them, and presiding over them have become a source of immense fulfillment and gives a lot more meaning to my life at this stage in my life.

At the same time, I feel a strong pull to work for greater human solidarity, unity and universal compassion for all races, religions, and nations deep inside me. The widening rift between the so-called Christian and Muslim states continues to bother and challenge me in a positive sense, leading me to dream on and devise ways by which I could contribute towards the attainment of such noble dreams. Vicariously, I share in the successes of individuals like Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and others whose vision for the world goes much farther than their short early lives could take them.

Into Another Intensity

My pilgrimage is far from over. Reeling as I still am, from both my perceived and real slights and injuries, I see myself still as the perpetual and consummate mountain trekker who may have conquered heights, but not the final summit of everyone’s ultimate dream. The road is long and winding. The challenges remain, and the stakes are high, but the reward is certain. There is still a lot of need for inner work and self-processing. “God ain’t done with me yet,” as an old 70s era poster puts it. But with St. Augustine, I am a firm believer that in this pilgrimage of life and faith, “solvitur ambulando” (cited by Cousineau, 1998, p. 104). Things are solved while walking. For while one mountain’s peak can make me “be still” and breathless for a short while, the ultimate summit of perfection and spiritual growth would have me “still moving into another intensity, a further union, a deeper communion.”

References:

Brueggemann, Walter (1986). Hopeful imagination: Prophetic voices in exile. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the United States Catholic Conference (1991). The new American bible. South Bend, Indiana: Greenlawn Press.

Cousineau, Phil (1998). The art of pilgrimage: The seeker’s guide to making travel sacred. Boston: Conari Press.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor (1990). The brothers Karamazov. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Dresner, Samuel H. (Ed.) (1983). I asked for wonder: A spiritual anthology by Abraham Joshua Heschel. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Eliot, Thomas Stearns (1971). Four quartets. New York: Harcourt Publishers.

Erikson, Erik H. (1963). Childhood and society. 2^nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Fowler, James W. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Jung, Carl G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. Translated by W.S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.

Kohlberg, Lawrence (1984). The psychology of moral development: The nature and validity of moral stages. Essays on Moral Development. Volume II. San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers.

Levinson, Daniel J. (1978). The seasons of a man’s life. New York: Ballantine Books.

Rilke, Rainier Maria (1934). Letters to a young poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton. Revised Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Sheehy, Gail (1999). Understanding men’s passages: Discovering the new map of men’s lives. New York: Ballantine Books.

Yalom, Irvin D. (2002). The gift of therapy: An open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.