23rd February 2007
I had a recurring dream last night.
The first memory is a smell. I don't often smell in dreams, I don't think, but I am sure I did in this one. It's the smell of Tooting Market in South London, as I remember it as a child in the early 1970's. Rotting vegetables, Asian and Carribean spices, and the pungent, chemical smell of the shoe mender. In the dream it felt as though I was in very familiar territory and I was pleased to be back. I enjoyed looking at various stalls. I can remember one with batik and brass tea light holders. Another loaded with cheap jewellery - which had existed in reality. There were lots of tassles. (Freud would have a field day.)
As I walk round the market I'm aware that some stalls have moved from their usual, familiar places. This is fine. I am quite pleased they are still there though. Don't know why. I think I would have been sad if they had gone. Then I start to look for something.
The picture changes. I set off purposefully and suddenly new routes open up. The first new row of stalls I find quite exciting. I didn't know that was there, how brilliant feeling. Gradually, no matter which way I turn, I feel I am in unfamiliar territory. None of it in this version of the dream is threatening - just a little disconcerting. I wasn't expecting to find so many new twists and turns. I woke up too soon. I was intrigued, I wanted to know what was round the corner.
My husband wonders if it isn't about what's going on inside me - but more about my thoughts concerning external things. I recognise, just as I did in the dream, the familiar things - how to start off - but not the out-working of where I go with what is available to me. At the moment there is no clear line or ultimate finish.
This is a fascinating interpretation and makes sense to me. At various times in our lives we need to discern our next step in life. Discernment is a toughie. When is it just a question of my ego/will wanting something - and wilfully seeking it - and when is it a process of discerning the will of God/our deeper soul-centredness; the part which best reflects our divine spark - made in God's image?
Within myself I listen hard to the rhythms of my inner dialoguing but I have also learnt over the years with some gifted spiritual directors - and life experience - that I must also listen to the message behind the words and images; listen to silence, when words and pictures, colours, memories, feelings - cease.
Discernment for me is partly about energy. If an aspiration saps my energy or appears to wear me down, then I question why I am forcing myself on. Is it a question of how I am approaching the task? Am I setting my self-expectation too high and constantly beating myself up when I don't achieve my own exacting (impossible?) standards? When energy loss is derived from within me and the way I re-run my own inner scripts about myself and how I imagine (often wholly inaccurately) how others see me, then it is time to re-frame not only the task - but my self-sabotaging techniques. The energy loss is not caused by the inappropriateness of the occupation but the methods I am utilising when I approach it. Often, once I leave out the inner dialogue (that sounds like a particularly over-bearing school mistress) from my head - I suddenly find I not only have an energy surge (not another name in this case for a hot flush) but also a clearer vision of how I want to go on.
There's a different kind of energy loss which is caused because the choice is inappropriate - and is, in essence, life-sapping. Matthew Fox, a contemporary writer in Creation Spirituality, talks a great deal about making life choices which are essentially life-enhancing. The opposite is something which is death-promoting - which encourages me, at the deepest levels to be insensitive, shut down, uncaring, manipulative and destructive.
As I've got older I have learnt to identify some of what psychotherapists would describe as my drivers - the prompts deep in my psyche - learnt in my earliest years from carers and family. These are very different for each of us. One of drivers, having been born a thalidomide baby, growing up and being normalised in mainstream education, has been a deep-seated desire to belong. Many people share a similar need. When I make a choice which encourages a sense of belonging, promoting self-regard and acceptance, I know I am making a choice which will bring me life. If I love myself - I can give love and life to others - but not always quite so open-handedly when this self acceptance is not in place. Equally, if I choose paths which result in a sense of alienation or marginalisation - I am feeding an image of myself first planted in my head probably by the playground taunts of the bullies at infants school. Of course, as an adult I can over-ride the impact of the connections that not-belonging has left on the child Jane, but I can only do this at a conscious level; the resonance remains - although thankfully less powerfully present in my adult self than in my child or teenage form.
Discernment, if it is about energy, is also about the divine interplay with God.
I don't have a strongly interventionist view of the Creator as my personal care assistant einsuring I make it across the road (actually, that would put Rainbow, my guide dog, out of a job). I do see the process of claiming insight into the Divine Purpose as lying in the space where words cease and my mind is less cluttered.
I watched the movie Bruce Almighty with my 12 year old the other evening - a film he recommended. The story concerns a man who becomes so self-pitying that he challenges God to engage with him - directly. God hands his (in this case it is a he - but he was black and a very gentle, humorous sort of a god) power over to Bruce. Just like all good Miracle Plays, Parables and Myths - Bruce spends quite a lot of the movie abusing his new powers to achieve his own rather dubious ends.
Bruce eventually returns to God in desperation when he decides, because he is in overload, to simply say yes to all the prayers everyone asks him to answer. The consequences are disastrous and Bruce is taken by God to see some of the outcomes. God admits, and I paraphrase, Now you understand about Free Will. I have to deal with this all the time.
I don't believe in a God (and I collected this quote years ago and keep it in my commonplace book - but can't now attribute it) who is my personal superhero:
"There is something exquisitely luxurious about room service in a hotel. All you have to do is pick up a telephone and somebody is ready and waiting to bring you breakfast, lunch, dinner ... whatever your heart desires ... That's the concept that some of us have of prayer. We have created God in the image of the divine bellhop. Prayer for us is the ultimate room service, wrought by direct dialing. Furthermore no tipping, and everything is charged to the great credit card in the sky..."
I believe in a God who speaks through my deepest heart's desires and through the wisdom and insights of others. I hold on fiercely to the belief that God's incarnation was that God is with us - not God is with me. So, for me, an important part of discernment is to quieten the voices in my head who insist they all know best; to address my fears and deepest longings, and then - because only then can I honestly say I am being truly open-handed and attentive - to listen to the insights, perceptions, wisdom and hopes of those who share the pilgrimage of faith and life,
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