What is the unseen relational piece to this situation?
—CATHY MCNALLY
If you can understand any one thing deeply, it will open you to a better understanding of everything.
—MATHEMATICIAN EDWARD BURGER
EACH OF THE great sages and prophets was born with a weight of expectation laid out before them—including Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. And each refused what others had prepared for them, because of their allegiance to a greater inheritance that they directly intuited.
It takes courage to settle below all that’s expected of us so we can finally touch into what is innately ours. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn from others or that there aren’t traditions worth carrying forward. But settling below all we’ve been taught, below all that’s planned for us, allows us to touch life directly without undue influence. From that direct knowing, we can choose authentically what to bring forward because it genuinely speaks to us, rather than what rises out of reflex or obligation. This is being faithful to our true inheritance.
The wisdom in being alive appears like sheet music. It can’t be heard until played by each of us. It means rubbing our questions like bows against the strings of time. We learn by listening, reflecting, expressing, and relating to life directly. We learn from each other by asking to hear each other’s song.
Knowing that you must sort out what is true for you, and knowing that you also need the wisdom of others to make your way, how will you build a bridge by which to cross the stream of trouble?
In building your own bridge to meaning, you will need your concern. Where is your concern? When was the last time you felt deep concern? Can you summon that concern within you now? You will also need that in you which can withstand the expectations of others. When was the last time you succumbed to a path that wasn’t true for you? When was the last time you followed what you knew to be true in your heart? Can you discern the difference between following others and following your heart? You will need steps to your bridge, steps such as trust, wonder, care, and honesty.
So in the days to come, can you identify some part of life you have trust in? Can you identify some part of life you feel wonder about? Can you identify something you care about? And can you identify some part of life you need to be more honest about?
When we seek guidance in how to exhibit confidence or to impress others, we’re often instructed in how to carry ourselves. But the deeper question—“How do you carry what is essentially true?”—is much more profound. How do you carry your one soul, your one pilot light, so it might illumine all you touch and not go out? What will you feed your true self? How will you care for it?
In Swahili, the word luglio means “food that you carry with you.” And in Latin, viaticum, a term for the Eucharist offered as Communion in the Catholic Church, means “food along the way.” Both can refer to actual food, but they imply a deeper sort of food that can sustain the soul on its journey.
So how do you carry your one, essential self through the world? And what is the food that you carry on the way that sustains your soul’s journey? No one can answer this for you. We each must define what will sustain us inwardly.
The word “manna” has a long history. During the forty years that the Jews wandered the desert after leaving their bondage in Egypt, manna was the name they gave the bread that mysteriously appeared to feed them, which would only stay fresh for one day. Later, when Jesus said, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he invoked a renewable form of sustenance. In this regard, manna implies a form of spiritual nourishment that has to be remade every day.
In the Polynesian tradition, the early tribal peoples used the word mana to refer to the numinous spirit that informs everything, the glow of being that emanates from trees, rocks, rivers, fire, people, and from the spirits of ancestors now gone. Carl Jung added his own psychospiritual definition, when he described mana as the unconscious influence of one being on another.
Together, these definitions suggest that we carry a piece of the Universe within us like a little sun. Some call this our soul. When we can be completely who we are, the piece of the Universe we carry within emanates warmth and light in all directions without preference. When this authentic, we grow toward each other. Essentially, manna/mana, in all its accumulated meaning, represents the inner light we need in order to survive and grow. How do we personalize this inner light and eat and drink from it in a daily way?
Yet, though we need to make our daily bread, what matters takes time to show itself and rise. Like it or not, we’re all required to be in relationship with the silent god of patience. Without the hard lessons of patience, we often make choices and decisions prematurely.
Outwardly, there’s always the need to gather information in order to know what is possible. This is called research. But more important is our need for insearch, the time needed to know what is true in the deepest context. We need to wait for the fog in our head to clear. We need to wait for the turbulence in our heart to settle. We need time to truly see what’s before us. The god of patience is a difficult ally who always sends uncertainty to interview us first, before coming to our aid.
I’m reminded of two sailors who were shipwrecked on a small island. After the shock wore off, they began to imagine life from this point on. Charlie was inclined to do only what was necessary to survive. Otherwise, he simply waited. Danny, his shipwrecked mate, asked him, “What are you waiting for? No one is coming.” Charlie thought for a while and replied, “I’m just waiting. I’m not going to do anything meaningless anymore.”
Danny shook his head and went about the island looking for sharp stones to use as tools, and fallen trees to build with. As he dumped what he was gathering, Charlie asked him, “What are you doing?” Danny said, “This is how I wait, by building.”
The two lost at sea represent our being and our doing, and how they often argue with each other; though we need both to make sense of where we land. The conversation between our being and doing can only unfold over time.
Under our being and doing, we have a quartet of competing voices. We have a voice in us that sees nothing. Everywhere we go, it keeps insisting that nothing matters. We have another voice that’s fearful, that says, “You know what? We shouldn’t have tried this. I’m not taking any more risks. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.” We also have a mystical voice of Spirit that says, “My God, we’re cradled by something incomprehensible.” And paradoxically, we have a blind one who feels most comfortable in the unknown, who says, “I’m not going back to anything false, because this touchstone I’ve chanced upon is as I’ve always known. There is no going back.”
Our job is to be the conductor of these voices, so we can discern our true inheritance. We could say this is the proper role of will. And as we wander authentically through the days, as we meet beautiful things and harsh things, as we meet obstacles and stumble unexpectedly into joy, we’re asked which side of us will meet the day: the voice in us that believes in nothing, or the one that believes in everything, or the one that is always afraid, or the one that when blind to the surface can see the depth? How will we make sense of what comes our way? How will we carry our one essential self?
I hear these voices every day. I just heard them yesterday at a Labor Day party that was full of life. While children were running about and adults were playing croquet, I realized it was a year ago to the day that my father died. My heart was both heavy and light all afternoon. Strange how he’s been with me so much since he’s gone. How did he carry his one essential self?
We never talked about such things. But this morning, I’m sitting in the garage holding his tools, turning his worn chisel in my hand, and wondering what I’m bringing forward from him.
It seems our conversation with life never stops, even with those who are gone. It seems the challenge of inner maturity is not to play seesaw with the joy and sorrow we face, but to open our heart like a worn basin near the edge of the sea, letting joy and sorrow swirl into a presence that lifts us in a way we never imagined.
To bring forward what genuinely speaks to us, rather than what rises out of reflex or obligation. This is being faithful to our true inheritance.