In an ancient Jewish work of wisdom literature, the author sums up his philosophy of life: "Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do.”
This author hits on a crucial insight. The key to being able to really enjoy your life is to feel approved of, as if you really belong in the universe.
There is in many of us a constant background of self-doubt that gnaws away at our enjoyment of life. It’s a feeling that somehow we aren’t quite acceptable as we are. And when things go wrong––particularly at those times when we find ourselves on a helter-skelter of what seems like “bad luck”––it’s especially easy to feel disapproved of.
It’s for you and me, when we don’t feel totally acceptable, that Michael Brown wrote his wonderful book The Presence Process. It leads us step by step into an state of being in which we can simply enjoy the person we are. We accept ourselves, without reservation and with no holding back.
This is the opposite of what so much of religion has emphasized—that we aren’t acceptable. “Just as I am” isn’t good enough, we’ve been told. What’s been missed is that it’s our inability to accept ourselves that God “disapproves” of, not our acceptance of ourselves.
The realization that no matter what comes our way, we are loved and accepted in the created order is one of the most life-changing breakthroughs we ever make. It brings a settled sense of worth, which wells up spontaneously within us. This acceptance of ourselves proves to be the antidote to all the self-talk many of us indulge in about how inadequate we feel.
It’s this settled sense of our acceptability that enables us to follow the advice of that Jewish author of Ecclesiastes. “Let your garments be always white,” he urges. “Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the fleeting days of life that have been granted you under the sun. Whatever it is in your power to do, do with all your might."
There are some time-bound cultural images and values in the language, the result of the passing of two and a half millennia since he penned this advice, but we can still hear his message—to make the ordinary, everyday things of life the vehicles of a grand celebration of our existence.
Do whatever you do with all your might. Really be present in your living. Give your whole being to it.
In other words, don’t measure your life primarily by money or power or education. This author had all of these things—mansions to live in, parks with lakes, a staff of entertainers ranging from dancers to musicians, a wealth of learning, a private wildlife park, and every luxury he desired. But they weren’t where he found fulfillment. He found fulfillment in the joy of experiencing each simple moment of his life in its fullness.
It’s a matter of how aware you are in all of the little things that make up the backdrop of your life—how much you relish a good meal, being among friends, watching a sunset, observing the trees bursting into foliage in spring or changing color in fall, hugging your loved ones, and making your primary relationship, if you have one, a grand romance.
Fulfillment comes from the process of living, when you engage wholeheartedly in this process, simply for itself and not for some specific outcome. As you live out the process, accepting life each step of the way as it unfolds instead of fighting and resisting and feeling badly about how things are going, you find meaning one moment at a time.
Non-acceptance, because you have a concept of how you are supposed or not supposed to be, ruins the spontaneity, blocks the flow, dams up the joy. And then you find yourself in pain, as either “everything seems to be going wrong” in your life, or you feel “empty” or “bored” with everything.
The twentieth century philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich says of such moments of painful realization, “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted.’”
The message of The Presence Process is that you are accepted. And it will show you how to live every moment of every day in the fullness of the acceptance stumbled upon by the author of Ecclesiastes all those centuries ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment