In Search of a Soul - III
(Personal Transformation)

The Rev. G. Bradford Hall

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School

December 15, 1996

“I want to live in grace as much of the time
as possible, and with such harmony that my
inner and outer self are one.”

With these graceful words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, we continue Part III of our Advent series - “In Search of a Soul.” Over the past two weeks, I have proposed some ways in which we might learn how to live in harmony with ourselves by:

1. Traveling a bit lighter through life, shedding those outer and inner burdens which hold us back from paying attention to our journey of faith.

2. Making time for solitude, to be alone with ourselves and our God as we search for “The Center of our Soul.”

3. Learning how to live in outer harmony with the world using the God-given gift of joy and wonder.

On this 3rd Sunday of Advent, I want to focus on a fourth pathway to living in grace and harmony with ourselves:

The Way of Personal Transformation

“Be Prepared” was the Boy Scout motto that I grew up with as a youth. I never really understood it as a child, but I do now. For if you choose to set off on a journey of faith and go inward in search of a soul, you must be prepared to change. You and your life will be transformed. I stand here before you as a classic example of that transformation.

Our guide, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writes about personal change in her book, Gift from the Sea. Once we have gone inward and discovered ourselves, we cannot return to the old tightly enclosed world we once lived in. We have grown too big, too many-sided, and like a hermit crab, we must shed our old shell. Anne focuses on a particular time in life when personal growth and transformation usually happen. Listen to her words of wisdom.

“Perhaps middle age,” she writes, “should be a period of shedding shells: the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life as one sheds clothes in beach-living - one’s pride, one’s false ambitions, one’s mask, one’s armor. Was that armor not put on to protect us from the competitive world? If one ceases to compete, does one need it? Perhaps one can, at least in middle age, be completely oneself. What a liberation that would be!”

“It is true that the adventures of youth are less open to us. Most of us cannot, at this point, start a new career or raise a new family. Many of the physical, material, and worldly ambitions are less attainable than they were twenty years ago. But is this not often a relief? I no longer worry about being the belle of Newport, a beautiful woman, who had become a talented artist, once said. I always liked the Virginia Woolf hero who meets middle age admitting: Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires. Certain things lie beyond my scope. I shall never understand the harder problems of philosophy. Rome is the limit of my traveling. I shall never see savages in Tahiti spearing fish by the light of a blazing light or a lion spring in the jungle.”

“We Americans, with our terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success, tend to belittle the afternoon of life and even to pretend it never comes. We push the clock back and try to prolong the morning. We do not succeed, of course. We cannot compete with our sons and daughters.”

“For is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth? Society in general does not help one accept this interpretation of the second half of life. And therefore, this period of expanding is often tragically misunderstood. We make the false assumption that it is a period of decline, so one interprets these life-signs as signs of approaching death. Instead of facing them, one runs away, one escapes into depressions, nervous breakdowns, drink, love affairs, or fruitless overwork. Anything, rather than face them. Anything, rather than stand still and learn from them. One tries to cure the signs of growth, to exorcize them as if they were devils, when really they might be angels of annunciation, announcing a new stage in living. Having shed many of our physical struggles, worldly ambitions, and material encumbrances of active life, one might be free to fulfill the neglected side of one’s self. One might be free for growth of mind, heart, and talent, free at last for spiritual growth.

(Paraphrased for brevity from Gift from the Sea)

With this freedom, we will close this series on a personal note. Along with being our guide for this Advent series, Anne Lindbergh’s book was my personal guide during my time of transformation. Twenty-one years ago, I was, like Anne, an aviator who had reached mid-age and found myself in a deep search for my soul. I didn’t particularly like it and if the truth be known, didn’t particularly want it, but with a little help from my wife and friends, I was thrust into myself and I had the good sense to stay there.

One of those good friends gave me Anne’s book, Gift from the Sea. It was not only a life preserver, but Anne’s words provided me with the permission I needed to complete my inward journey, to find out who I really was, and experience the personal transformation which led to a major life change, from Naval Aviator to Priest.

Fortunately, most mid-age life changes do not result in quite so dramatic a vocational change as Poet Judith Viorst reveals so exquisitely in “The Pleasures of an Ordinary Life”.

I’ve had my share of necessary losses
Of dreams I know can no longer come true.
I’m done now with the whys and the becauses.
It’s time to make things good, not just make do.
It’s time to stop complaining and pursue
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I used to rail against my compromises.
I yearned for the wild music, the swift race.
But happiness arrived in new disguises:
Sun lighting a child’s hair. A friend’s embrace.
Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.
It seems the woman I’ve turned out to be
Is not the heroine of some grand story.
But I have learned to find the poetry
In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

Young fantasies of magic and of mystery
Are over. But they really can’t compete
With all we’ve built together: A long history
Connections that help render us complete.
Ties that hold and heal us. And the sweet,
Sweet pleasures of an ordinary life.”

Judith Viorst’s... Forever Fifty
AMEN

The Rev. Bradford G. Hall
December 15, 1996