Falling Upward – A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life : Richard Rohr Jossey-Bass 2011 Notes Alison Morgan April 2012 ‘The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it’, xi. Thomas Merton.. points out that we may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to find when we get to the top that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall’ – xvii. It’s as if we build the basement and the first floor, but have no idea how to build the upper stories. Maybe it’s because we fear getting old; travelling upwards is good, travelling down seems less so. ‘We do not want to embark on a further journey if it feels like going down, especially after we have put so much sound and fury into going up. This is surely the first and primary reason why many people never get to the fullness of their own lives. The supposed achievements of the first half of life have to fall apart and show themselves to be wanting in some way, or we will not move further. Why would we?’ xix. ‘Normally a job, fortune, or reputation has to be lost, a death has to be suffered, a house has to be flooded, or a disease has to be endured’ – otherwise we become spiritually lazy. This message of falling down and moving up is counterintuitive, but essential. We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. xxii The model – Odysseus. Teresias’ prophecy is an omen of what will happen to all of us. p xxxiv. It comes when he is at rock bottom – travelling through Hades. It’s divine; he’s holding a golden sceptre. it’s about reconnection, leaving Ithaca for the mainland. He carries the oar, his previous tool, but uses it as a winnowing shovel, and will bury it before he can return home; he sacrifices the symbols of the first half of his life to Neptune; he makes a sacrifice to all the gods; he returns home to die. The second half of his journey is essential; only then does it become possible for him to say he can live happily with his people around him, until he sinks under the comfortable burden of years, and death will come to him gently from the sea. ‘Death is largely a threat to those who have not yet lived their life. Odysseus has lived the journeys of both halves of life, and is ready to freely and finally let go.
1. The two halves of life The task of the first half of life is to create a proper container for one’s life – and answer questions like, what makes me significant; how can I support myself; who will go with me? The task of the second half is to find the actual contents that his container was meant to hold and deliver. The container is not an end in itself, but exists for the sake of the deeper and fuller life you do not yet know about. In the first half, success, security, looking good are the main questions – the lower parts of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. NB the US culture is still adolescent – prioritising first half of life issues like defence and security over second half issues like education, health care for the poor, the arts. If we remain preoccupied with order, control, safety, pleasure and certitude, many people never get to the contents of their own lives. ‘Human life is about more than building boundaries, protecting identities, creating tribes, and teaching impulse control’. Lk 12.23, life is more than food; Matt 16.26 gaining the world and losing your soul. Ken Keyes: ‘More suffering comes into the world by people taking offence than by people intending to give offence’, 7. Carl Jung first popularised the phrase ‘the two halves of life’, but many other teachers recognise the steps. Abraham & Sarah; Exodus; Jesus’s 4 kinds of soil; stations of the cross; Bonaventure, Fowler, Maslow et al. Growth and development have a direction; unless you chart it you have no way to name maturity or immaturity. It’s why societies are best led by wise elders – not by youthful suicide bombers. But immature societies tend to choose immature leaders. Democracy isn’t the best form of govt, just the safest. Much of organised religion is living inside first half of life issues.