Archive for the ‘Soldier of Christ’ tag
Change Cannot Be Reversed
I took this photo about a week before I left Canada for China. The scene is in a historical reconstruction of a Métis settlement in north-central Saskatchewan, a tiny Catholic community. In the past this community was the site of a battle between those trying desperately to hold on to an older vision versus the modern (at that time) power that wanted these old ways buried. Today, this site is a tourist stop. One can see evidence from the past which speaks of what was. Yet, not matter how much nostalgia might press, one can never reverse time to return to the way it was.
As a diversion from thinking too much, I am reading a novel called “The Alchemyst,” by Michael Scott. It is a book borrowed from my local library back in Canada, an ebook. Just over half way through the book I came across these words that I immediately knew should become part of my next post, this one. ”Once begun, change cannot be reversed.” Of course, I immediately thought of this line from a “Jungian” point of view. And, I thought of my “changes.” As a youth, the earliest memories are of a “belief” in God and how I was going to be a “Soldier of Christ.” I didn’t live in a “religious” family; somehow, the spiritual drive was evident early and most in my family thought I was going to be a priest. But, I saw too much that didn’t fit with spirituality in the “church” as I experienced it, and moved away. I visited other churches of other faiths hoping somehow that I would see what I wanted and needed. What I found was that I was all on my own. At seventeen years of age, I came to believe that Neitzsche’s “Zarathustra” had it right, that God was dead. Music had replaced religion for me. It sometimes echoed my pain, my longing, my questions.
God – John Lennon
God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,
I’ll say it again,
God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,
I don’t believe in magic,
I don’t believe in I-ching,
I don’t believe in bible,
I don’t believe in tarot,
I don’t believe in Hitler,
I don’t believe in Jesus,
I don’t believe in Kennedy,
I don’t believe in Buddha,
I don’t believe in mantra,
I don’t believe in Gita,
I don’t believe in yoga,
I don’t believe in kings,
I don’t believe in Elvis,
I don’t believe in Zimmerman,
I don’t believe in Beatles,
I just believe in me,
Yoko and me,
And that’s reality.
The dream is over,
What can I say?
The dream is over,
Yesterday,
I was dreamweaver,
But now I’m reborn,
I was the walrus,
But now I’m John,
And so dear friends,
You just have to carry on,
The dream is over.
I can’t go back, even to the days of the music and John Lennon. Yet, in the past was something that I found, something that still exists, a state of “grace.” It was and is a gift that somehow wasn’t limited to a time or place or creed. It was and is something that I found and continue to find, within my “self.”
“In Jung’s view, the psychological experience of unconscious compensation, which demonstrably moves toward wholeness, is comparable to the experience of God; indeed, he argues that the two are virtually indistinguishable. The experience of this wholeness or psychic integration Jung came to equate with the concept of grace . . .” (Dourley, The Illness That We Are, p. 13)
