Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Over the past weeks as I have been thinking about the challenge James Hollis gives us when he asks that we find and follow the path of creativity and delight in foolish passions, a favorite quote has bobbed around in the front of my mind a lot.  It seems to fit with this eighth chapter of Jim's book, WHAT MATTERS MOST: LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE. 

I had seen the quote in a magazine years ago, but most recently I found it as the beginning of Roger Housden's SEVEN SINS FOR A LIFE WORTH LIVING.  The quotation, attributed to the prolific and famous "anonymous",  is this: 

"When you die, God and the angels will hold you accountable for all the pleasures you were allowed in life that you denied yourself."  

Is that your view of the accountability God and the angels will ask of you?  Is that the picture of "Judgement Day" that you were taught?  Does it remind you in any way whatsoever of Michelangelo's "Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican in Rome?

Mercy!  What lengths I have had to go to in order to change my thinking and overcome the childhood images of Judgement Day, a day in which all of my sins were read out on a giant loudspeaker to all of creation.   My earliest images of Judgement Day included being subjected to a recounting of my sins of omission and my sins of commission read in God's big, booming voice from his great throne and judgement seat!  (Did anyone else have that image?)

My mother used to say, "Be sure your sins will find you out," and I have to say that that served to keep me in line more than once--a lot more than once!

What a wild and crazy idea it is that we might have to give an account of the pleasures we were allowed, but refused to enjoy!  If that is true, I'm committing right now to that challenge.  If there's an aisle I can walk, a card I can sign or an oath I can take, I'm ready.  Just as I am, it's time to make the shift.

During these same few weeks of pondering Jim's challenge, I have been following my own path of creativity and delighting in what some would call a most foolish passion.  I have been completing the manuscript for my book which represents twenty-five years of research and reading, teaching, listening, exploring, seeking and finding.   My book is entitled JOINT VENTURE:  PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY FOR EVERYDAY PILGRIMS, and tomorrow I will hit "send" and all 260 pages will go across the miles to my publisher's computer. 

It scares me to death to do that.  As an experienced writer I know that Judgement Day is coming.  I will be held accountable by my readers for what I have written.  Whether what I have written is meaningful or helpful matters to me.

"Will that make you any money?" a friend asked me the other day, and as I looked into her eyes I knew how utterly foolish she must think I am to have devoted this much time and effort to something if I couldn't be assured of making "any" money from it.  (I'm confident that "any" money means "a lot of" money, and I realize that in this person's eyes, if it won't make any money, it's not worth doing.)

"Who do you think will read that book?" another person asked when I gave my brief, one-minute thesis of the book.  I could tell that my idea was not resonating with this person.   I'm used to that.  I made peace long ago with the reality that my books aren't the ones that appeal to the masses and yes, sometimes I do wish I'd written romance novels, as my friends urged me to do when I first started writing. 

"Do you write under a pseudonym?" I'm often asked, and my response is the same.  If I'm going to spend this much time, pouring out my thoughts, my heart and my soul onto paper, I'm going to put my name on it.   I don't intend to hide behind a pen name, ever.  I intend to stand behind what I write, out-in-front, bare-faced.

The truth is that I love to take concepts and ideas that have changed my life and see if I can capture and write those thoughts in words and sentences, form sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into chapters that just might encourage, enlighten, inspire someone else to follow his/her own path of creativity and delight in his/her own foolish passion.  I love to communicate observations and experiences of my own that might connect with the True Self of someone else, that Self that is the essence of every human being.  Though I write about God a lot, I don't speak for God.  I do hope, though, that what I write somehow nudges people toward the Mystery/the Source/the Beloved/God, the kingdom within.  

If I do that, then I will have fulfilled the purpose for which I was born.

I love to write about things that matter; to me, that is infinitely satisfying and enjoyable.   If that is foolish, so be it.  For me, it is a holy foolishness, a foolishness that gives me deep, abiding pleasure.

Jim's challenge is not just to have a good time, but it is to do that thing that you must do, that thing that brings you deep, abiding joy.  To follow one's own creative path is not a fool-hardy venture, but it is a venture that expresses the uniqueness of your own wild and precious life, and it may look foolish to those on the outside of your life, looking in. 

To delight in foolish passions is to discover, uncover or recover the childlike part of yourself, the part that needs and wants to play, the part of you that knows how to play.

Jim describes one of his foolish passions, baseball.  He writes about  how important it is to be access and express "that youthful sense of play that persists in a healthy form".  On page 133 he writes, "When one loses the boy, something dies forever."

Some of us have lost touch with the child within and have lived a long time without letting the free child in us out to play.

I have many things I enjoy.   Writing is my foolish passion.   I love it, and I must do it.  It is, for me, play.

What is play, for you?

How does the quote by "anonymous" strike you?

What pleasures do you need to enjoy?

What is your foolish passion that you enjoy, no matter how others may judge it?

Grace to you--

Jeanie

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus himself cautioned against lighting a lamp and covering it up.  In Matthew 5:16 he said, "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds...."    I'm guessing there were those who thought his light was a foolish passion.  What do you think?

(This is the fourth in a four week series of reflections based on Chapter Eight of the book WHAT MATTERS MOST:  LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE,  by James Hollis.  Next week I will start a four week series on Chapter Nine, "That We Engage Spiritual Crises and Other Bad Days at the Office."

 You can order Jim's books from here -- http://www.junghouston.org or from http://www.amazon.com.     You can also order CDs of his lecture from this course from the Jung Center in Houston.      Previous posts from this series can be found by clicking "What Matters" on the home page of this website.   I welcome and enjoy your comments, posted here on this website or sent to me by e-mail.)