What Work? - Part 2
Where can you find soul speaking in everyday life?
I’ve been here before.
Sort of.
I mean, I’ve never been 50 before.
And I’ve never had my position at work eliminated before, let alone have it happen at a company I love doing work I deeply enjoy.
It’s never been two months after my dad died before.
But despite all that, so much of my life right now feels familiar.
This is true both in the sense of deja vu, where everyday moments hold echos from the past, but also in the sense that I’ve stood at this same precipice before and am being asked once again, which way do you want to go?
The question is, “This time, will I change something?”
Deja Vu (And Then Some)
I can’t help but think that there is something in these moments where I find the conclusion to last week’s post, where I suggested what we really need to do is encounter soul and discover our calling.
While your stories won’t be the same as mine, as you read mine and the thoughts that come with them, I invite you to think of your own experiences and the places you keep coming back to.
As you read, write these stories down and I’ll wrap up with some questions to ask yourself.
Untold Stories
The most profound moment came when I walked into Bardo on Broadway a couple weeks ago. While there was a brief memory of an early date with my now ex-wife, I was overwhelmed by a memory of me sitting down to write after a conversation with my (now Instagram Famous) friend Nick who had finally figured out how to get through life without a bottle in his hand. Now he does stuff like this:
I’ve spent the days since trying to find what I wrote that day, all I know is that it had something to do with my story, and, despite a compelling start, I never finished the project (based on the date, I’m guessing it was, “Radical Relentless Love, An Introduction”). Of course my Scrivener home screen is filled with projects that sit incomplete and other writing projects are scattered through my Notes App and documents folder so there’s no being sure.
But the moment I walked in to Bardo a couple weeks ago, I knew there was a story still waiting to be told. So before I left, I made sure to get a few words down, words that open my latest writing project:
In August of 2015 I found myself staring at a blank screen. I was supposed to be writing my doctoral dissertation on spiritual formation but had come to a terrifying realization.
I had nothing to say.
More accurately, I had nothing worth saying.
Sure I could have filled pages with ideas and theories of how to effectively nurture and care for the human soul, but I couldn’t say it with any integrity.
An Invitation from Nick
Coincidentally, I’d seen Nick for the first time since that meet up at Bardo just a week earlier. I’d noticed from his video that he was walking the streets of Denver after years overseas and then some time in LA, so I reached out.
We got together, caught up on life and at one point he paused and said, “Can I challenge you on that?”
We’d been talking about money and I’d made a comment about not being where your typical 50-year old should be because life’s taken me of a number of wild turns. Now, there’s truth to the statement at a number of levels:
I’ve spent the last 7 years in a house I really can’t afford because I wanted to keep some consistency and stability for my kid.
In 2019 I was in a car accident that basically left me homebound for 3 months as I recovered from a concussion. The insurance agency did a fantastic job of screwing me over so I got next to nothing in the form of a settlement.
In 2020 Covid killed the funeral business. There was plenty of death but no services, and at that time, officiating funerals was my primary form of income.
But Nick wasn’t buying that it was just life’s jabs that held me back. His challenge:
I don’t think money motivates you. I don’t think you care. If you did, you’re smart enough and driven enough to be as wealthy as you want to be, you’re just not motivated that way.
There’s truth to that. I enjoy some of the things that money enables, primarily travel, but I’m a relatively simple guy on the whole. And even when I travel, I tend to keep it simple.
While this might mean that I don’t need to pay as much attention to money, it could also be an invitation to ask why I am this way, including the possibility that I have some entitlement issues or don’t think my work is worth payment.
Justice on Hold
The reason I’d gone to Bardo that day was to meet with Kate, a young woman a group of friends and I ran into after Denver’s version of the Bernie and AOC rally. She asked if we attended and asked, “What are you going to do now?”
I told her about my work with Justice For All and she wanted to find out more, so we got coffee, talked about the work and discussed some potential collaborations.
Oddly, that all came in a season that keeps reminding me why I stepped away from this kind of work in the past. The infighting, the bickering, the name calling, and the people desperately trying to find others who will help them make their pet projects a reality. I went through all of this in 2021 with the now defunct People’s Party and some of the spinoff group.
Ultimately, after getting burned, it made more sense to help people on the road to personal development which is why I ultimately became certified as a Holistic Life Coach and then a breathwork facilitator. Two things that got put on hold with my dad’s cancer diagnosis.
Once again, it has me thinking what keeps justice on hold and what I’m invited to do about it.
A Return to the “Pulpit”
If that wasn’t enough, The Sanctuary invited me to step into my past life and preach on Palm Sunday.
What made this sermon different, is that, perhaps for the first time, I came with all of me and all of what I believe. I called out the political right and left, Americanism, and pop Christianity, not as a rant but because that’s what the text invited (although you’d never know it given how we typically tell the story).
Somewhat to my surprise, it resonated with people. Perhaps more boldness is in my future.
From House to Home
To top it all off, my kid and I are preparing to move into my parents’ old home.
This is the house I first moved into the last day of seventh grade. It’s the house I came back to during college. I lived there again in late 2009 when preparing for a three month stint in Africa (that turned into 6 months). It’s where I live after getting back from Africa while looking for a job and where I lived after my private inner chaos became public in 2010. There are a lot of memories in that house, and they came during some of the darkest seasons of my life.
Now there’s an opportunity to take that house and make it a home.
Questions I’m Asking
In the face of all this, what questions am I asking? How am I trying to make sense of all this deja vu?
Where is Soul in All of It?
If we discover our calling through an encounter with soul, then it’s worth asking where soul might be in all of these experiences.
Now, in this particular context, when I say soul I mean it the same way Plotkin does. It’s your embodiment of spirit, with spirit being the overarching wisdom of the universe. So the question becomes, how does spirit speak specifically through you?
Here are a few clues that spirit might be calling out your soul:
what you’re feeling is deeper than career or social role
it upsets the apple cart of your life
you experience it in “non-ordinary” states
it fuels hope, desire, gratitude, joy, as well as grief (been missing it) and fear (demands)
it feels too big, a blessing and a burden, needs embodiment
it serves the whole community
it resonates with numinous events … explains your past and amplifies the future
it can be both an invitation to change what we do or give us a new way of doing it
it is confirmed by they joy in it and service to the world
Often we encounter soul in a core wound. In other words, the very thing we are trying to protect ourselves from becomes the place where we find life. This means it’s always wise to explore resistance.
What’s Barren?
The question first came to mind while doing some morning meditation that invited me to read a story from the Bible where an older woman who’d never had children was unexpectedly pregnant. The text called her barren.
Am I drawn back to these places and people and experiences because there is unfinished business there? Is something still waiting to be born?
Where’s Ego Fit?
As I wrestle with the possibilities, I think it’s also important to ask where ego fits.
There are times in my life where preaching made me feel ok about me. Similarly, as I sat down to write I imagined the impact I would have and the opportunities that would stem from my writing. Preaching and writing from soul won’t do that.
Rather, when it comes from soul, it comes from you but isn’t for you, it’s something you’re giving to the world.
So what’s stirring for you?