Living Inside Out
Lynne Elwinger, O.C.D.
Some questions have a way of recurring in our lives as if calling attention to a buried treasure that we keep overlooking. The one cropping up in my life for many years is this: What does it mean to live as a disciple of Christ in our time?
My attempted answers over the years have been as varied as my changing inner and outer geography. Though they were perhaps good answers, I knew they were not “the” answer – the one main thing that made all the others possible. I found myself groping for a way to articulate the insights that were coming through as I searched for my bottom line. I was making progress in shoveling dirt, but the treasure had not as yet surfaced. After a time, the recurring question seemed to have become the eternal question, always with me.
At last, I believe that I have glimpsed the treasure and begun to find my personal answer to my eternal question. It is clear that I will spend the rest of my life trying to plumb the depths of this discovery and to live it out in daily life. It is a call, a challenge and a joy. I share my thoughts in case there could be some treasure in it for you as well.
Solitude In My Inner Depths
I have become aware that I have been asked to live all of life from the inside out, in a way that runs counter to the values of our culture and to my training from childhood. This does not mean living in a selfish way of ego-gratification, but taking solitude time in my inner depths where the encounter with the holy occurs. This encounter transforms everything it is allowed to touch.
Myriad voices of influence urge us to eat this, drive that, buy everything, and think in a certain way about many things. The consumer society tries to shape our goals and provide the means of their fulfillment, for a price. On the level of spirituality, also, it is easy to seek outside ourselves, to “consume” other people’s norms, experiences and teachings which may not be our own path, and try to imitate them. The results are usually disappointing. The only experience we can live is our own, and the only self we can be and can offer to God is our own. There is no one-size-fits-all here.
Jesus and the early disciples and followers who carried the Gospel to the world demonstrated what it meant to live life from the inside out. In their time, as in ours, this required going counter to the practices of their people. They seemed to have a different vision and it made all the difference. Jesus spoke of the reign of God being within, the inner well which never runs dry, and the pearl of great price buried in the field. I have known these scriptures, and many more with the same message, since childhood. Jesus’ example of entering deep within, encountering God and true self there, and living from that center stood out to me. I just didn’t seem to know how to do it.
Honesty With Oneself
How simple this is, I now think. It has been right in front of my face all of my life. Why didn’t I understand it like this before now? The idea seems simple but it is a huge challenge to live it out. In the beginning many leaps of faith are required and a lot of hard work, determination, and the courage to keep trying when the path is mostly falling and getting up and falling again. A rather stark sort of honesty with oneself is essential and the willingness to accept personal responsibility for the way we journey through life. Gone are the easy outs of blaming circumstances and other people for our own behavior. We are asked to love our enemies (as ourselves, no less) and to continue to be a loving force in the world even when we are unappreciated, disagreed with, ignored and misunderstood. This is a big order.
Although there were times in my life when I achieved some of this, I knew it was not yet my total lifestyle. It is so easy to get sidetracked. People who live this way all the time seem unusually gifted, and often don’t speak of their experiences, but we always recognize them. However, it is hard to believe that this is a way of doing life that is available to us as well. Reversing one’s manner of living from an externally oriented focus to one directed from one’s deep inner center is not an easy task. It requires, above all, making time for solitude that is uncluttered by other agendas, however meritorious they may be. This is not about extroverts and introverts. Both find it a challenge to refocus the basic assumptions with which we are programmed from childhood and to march to a different drummer. It takes a lot of perseverance in examining our actions and reactions with the concept that the place of needed change is within us. This process is definitely not without pain. The good news is that the pain is temporary, though it never feels that way at the time, and the longer one continues in the process, the easier and more useful it becomes.
A Significant Change
I started with the obvious things – too much concern with what others might think; over-accommodation to others’ ideas and desires; fears of expressing my own thoughts which seemed to differ from the prevailing norm; the ways in which I am caught up in consumerism; and my failure to make enough time for solitude/prayer. As I gradually shifted gears to a greater inner-directedness, I perceived a significant change in my quality of life. This was interesting because my outer situation was essentially unchanged. I realized that much of the low-level type of discontent I had been routinely experiencing was caused by a faulty way of looking at things, an other-directed way of seeing, which generated all sorts of expectations regarding other people’s behaviors, over which I had no control, and which was a sure prescription for disappointment. I also began to really understand happiness as a personal choice that must be made every day, and not as a state of being that arrives when everything is finally perfect and wonderful. I recognized that my anger and unhappiness came from inner, not outer, causes. Not welcome news, perhaps, but at least something I myself could change.
I Was Not Prepared
I was not prepared for the work it has been to change old habits and patterns of seeing and being. Nor did I realize how many subtle layers there were which needed attention. I had been acquainted with many of these concepts for a long time. I hadn’t even realized that they had not gone deep enough into my lived experience to cause the needed change, or that those that had been achieved had been superficial. Until we ourselves change ourselves, the entire process just keeps recycling and we feel ourselves victims of bad luck, other people, and any number of other things “out there”. I have become increasingly aware that when I can change my inner weather, the outer atmosphere changes too. This still comes as a surprise to me.
In our times, we all have issues and are keenly aware of our justifiable rights to be treated fairly and to be taken into consideration by others. I think it is easy to become oblivious to the fact that we have slipped into an expectation that others should meet our needs, behave according to our ideals, and do whatever makes us more comfortable. This is, in fact, itself a form of injustice to others. Only when we act from our deep center, grounded in God, can we hope to truly love and be just to others. But living from the inside out brings the peace the world cannot give and the truth that sets us free for discipleship in our time and place.
Sr. Lynne Thérèse Elwinger of the Resurrection O.C.D.