Friday, October 4, 2019

Soul Stories


Yesterday I went to my "Geography of Grace" group and we spent time reflecting on the "Desert Times" in our lives.  The reading on it started with this quote from Robert Frost

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places
.

I wrote and talked about the desert of retirement and the confusion of the changes as it involved my ego.  And who am I now that I am not a leader?  And always the question is - who am I anyway?

Then we learned about the difference between Ego Stories and Soul Stories.
I want to write it here so that I have a record. it was so helpful.

Ego stories are
 - stores told for the sake of self promotion, as when we apply for a job
 - focus on life's high spots when we have been successful and affirmed
 - try to portray us as in control or in charge of our lives
 - are often linear stories of continuity and consistency, stories that have a resolution
 - are highly crafted stories that leave out important things; may ignore or falsify certain information by "spinning" the facts
- are always told in prose, and sometimes involve numbers
 - are stories that do not sustain us in times of suffering
- are stories we tell at a party when someone asks "what do you do?"
"Produce! Get results! Make Money!  Make Friends!  Make changes! Or you will die of despair!  Chuang Tzu

Soul Stores are
 - "the story beneath the ego story" the one with the thread of truth running through it
- honor shadow as well as light, suffering as well as gladness
 - are often storeis of twists and turns when our best laid plans were undone by the unexpected
- allow us to integrate the fragments with the whole
- are unafraid of change, fear, loss, failure, and shame, or mystery, passion, and ecstasy
- are sometimes told in poetry, music, or art
- are stories that we can hold onto in the hardest of times
- are stories we want the people we love most to know, ones we are most likely to be reliving when we are awake at 3 am or when we die

"joy and sorrow aren't two different feelings for it (soul). It (soul) attends to us only when the two are joined."  - Wislawa Szymbarska

So - then we wrote a story two ways - as an ego story and as a soul story.  My story was about the death of Chuck and I could not even finish it.  In the ego story I was in control, making good decisions and almost heroic. But the soul story was full of confusion and anxiety and sadness.

The whole exercise was profound and enlightening.  What I realize is that as I am back in church work, it is easy to get caught up in ego stories. And the truth is that we all bounce around in between ego and soul. What I know to be true is that coming back into ministry at Gender Road feels very different as I am in a subordinate  position. It is easier to let go of the ego stories and attend to the  soul.

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