Friday, June 22, 2012

More thoughts from Medocino


I grew up in Belmont Shore, a small division of East Long Beach in California. We lived in a house with hardwood floors built in the 1920's just a few skips from the wall that divided Ocean Blvd. from the sand. Concrete alleys divided the one-way streets in this former salt marsh, and the smell of charcoal  barbecues wafted in the late afternoon as we'd dig up shells in our postage stamp front yard. It was the mid-1970's and it was simple and I was loved and I wasn't afraid. But sooner or later you grow up, go to college, get responsible, and embrace the joys and trials that await.
Some people don't think twice about the trajectories of their life, or maybe even once. They take things as they come, realign, readjust, achieve some goals, do good to themselves and their families. They live a pretty balanced life. But I can never wrap my mind around balance, at least the kind that lasts more than a few days. And here's the reason: it's just not enough. Balance doesn't satisfy. If it does, then you've succumbed to distractions and substitutes, like fake coffees and artificial grass. Balance tends to insulate, but the soul is too wonderful and wild and stubborn and sacred...it can't settle for balance. It's much to restless for that, because it's created to pursue and rest in its Creator, and anything less is fake coffee and artificial grass.

After college, my wife and I moved inland to pursue graduate work in theology and psychology. That's when I started painting houses so we could pay the school bills along the way and avoid an avalanche of delayed debt. It was supposed to be temporary, living away from the ocean, just until we finished getting the academic requirements and enough CEU's to start our professional life. That was 18 years ago. I've realigned, readjusted, achieved some goals, done some good, and, quite honestly, I am filled with deep gratitude and joy at the gifts of my life, my family, the way we live. I can sleep tonight knowing I am richly blessed.  And yet my soul is not completely satisfied. I'm not sure it ever will be, or should be in this life. But here's the thing. When I'm lingering somewhere on a foggy coast long enough to see the waterline along the rocks change with the tides, I'm at peace. I realize I don't need much of anything, just the basics. Kind of like Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Gift of the Sea.  I'm back to the trajectory that began in the salty days of seagulls and clanking masts and shells on the kitchen window sill. It's the peace of deep aligned with deep. It's a pretty good place to be.

 But it's not the norm. We've lived away from this place for 18 years now, and I want to be back. Not just a vacation or visit, but a way of life, again. Think of a kid who grew up on a 10,000 acre ranch in Montana. His life was about long days raising cattle and setting fences. Whether he spent his time working the land or working in the local small town, he knew his place. This is where he belonged. He might visit relatives in Miami for a week, but this could never be his home. He has a primitive need, a hard-wiring, to live and breath the mountains and pastures. It's his way of life, no matter what trade or career he embraces.  On a soul level, the value of place supersedes the value of vocation, and if he trades them out, his soul will stay restless, waiting to return home, resisting the insulating pursuit of balance.

The soul can not acclimate, only tolerate. I've learned this over the last 18 years, trying to make my home away from the coast, away from the place that defines me. And that's the key assumption, that place defines a man more than vocation. That's the way I see it. I want to live in that rugged coastal place where the deepest parts of my being can rest and rejuvenate. I've tried acclimating, adjusting, finding some balance. It just doesn't work. It doesn't satisfy in the long run. The best the soul can do is tolerate until it returns. As T.S. Eliot said, "we shall never cease from exploring. And the end of all our exploring will be to find the place from which we began, but to know it for the first time."

It's about coming home. Living undivided. It's the hard work of deep rest.


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