I have long had elder teachers in my life, sometimes even after they die. The above words came to me in a dream, spoken by my doctoral mentor who has been dead for ten years. He and I embraced hello in an elevator—yes, Jung would smile—and he spoke the words into my ear gently, with admiration, invitation. I felt relief, connection of being known and accepted, and surprise, mostly because I was unaware what words I might have for him. My sense now is that the words would have been difficult to share without trust of the relationship, like angry words, or words of disappointment and disillusionment shared with one’s family. He was telling me that it was okay to be angry with him, to distrust him, even to be disappointed in him. “So, you have words for me. Good.” So, this path of learning in Spirit has wounded and healed you, healed and wounded you. You wish I had prepared you better for that. Good.
The startlement in this felt-tectonic dream startled me into some new questions with both personal and professional dimension. Personally: by what tradition(s) or processes have I accepted these elder teachers into my life, my path? An important question for anyone serious about a spiritual path of integrity, wholeness, delight. As I’ve listened, I realize that the kind of teachers we choose say more about us than him, her, them. The kind of students we become shape the teachings we receive. More broadly, I realize this is a pressing question for many of us today. In a time of great institutional and cultural upheaval, how do we recognize teachers and teachings that shed light on a spiritual path?
Already the necessary, critical caveats clamor for attention. Aren’t ‘teachers’ those whom our educational institutions certify and employ as educators? Aren’t ‘teachings’ the subjects or disciplines they have mastered and ‘tradition’ with their students toward the educational mission of the communities in which teaching/learning occurs? And ‘spiritual path’? It can mean anything from adherence to or rootedeness within a historical religious tradition to a more 1960’s-nuanced, eclectic collage of traditions’ wisdom stewed into a life of seeking and upheaval. This ‘path’ can also mean a complete disregard of the question of significance in religious terms, professed instead in a vibrantly secular or atheistic voice without reference at all to ‘spiritual.’ In that case, it’s probably more precise to call it a human path, located accurately in the irrepressible cognitions of a specific form of species homo sapiens. In a time when so many cultural (especially religious and political) institutions face both internal and external transformations, however, these previous assumptions beg critical review and imaginative reconsideration.
Without institutional continuity, in times of institutional decline and increased discontinuity(ies), how do we recognize and authorize those who will teach us, those who come after us, in a life-giving path of shared values and compassionate care of others, our world? More boldly, how are we to teach those who have taught us, those who serve faithfully within current institutional settings with both cultural and political power and therefore great investment in older habits of mind? What words might I have for this mentor, a most significant teacher in my life who was yet one of the loneliest men I’d ever met? He was held captive, in a way, in his own intellectual passions, almost to the exclusion of the communal intimacy he conceived and articulated for so many of us.
If I were to reflect summarily on this for a moment, I would say that the most significant teachers in my life have arrived when I had great need, whether I was aware of or could describe the need in any detail. One came when I was at my loneliest: away from anything familiar, friends, my home, my family as I started a new job across the country. She understood loneliness, I think. Her gift seems to be companioning the wounded. She’s also deeply steeped in her tradition of faith—years of wrestling, years of surrendering to the shape of ancient wisdom in Triune Christianity lived within Christ’s teaching and life of Spirit. The fellow above ‘arrived’ into my life when I had had most of my rose-colored illusions about faith-community life shattered by the (now-) predictable frailties of human beings searching for love and wholeness as best they know how. He, too, understood loneliness. He, too, had a calling for companionship of Spirit, whose logic he attempted to articulate within his own deeply-steeped traditioning in Chalcedonian Christian discipleship.
Pair these recognizable elder-teachers with three others, no less significant to my path in their challenge and care. The first appeared in a difficult time of my professional and married life. This woman is not steeped in any faith-tradition to speak of, though she demonstrated a keen perception and abundance about life. While I think she knows of loneliness, I do not think she would spend much time or effort thinking about it. While the first two teachers here were recognized teachers within a tradition of faith and practice; this one is completely unknown, unrecognized within any tradition. A significant distinction, though it does not preclude the validity or significance of her presence for my learning. This teaching/learning relationship both healed and wounded, wounded and healed—the latter only upon completion of our companionship. The next one I see as an important teacher entered my life in similarly unanticipated fashion, but with recognizable resonance of devotion and mutual teaching. He’s a listening companion, an unknowing sage within his own tradition, who startled me out of my localized awareness toward an impassioned work begun in ambition but pursued in contemplative surrender. His entrance into my life was not unlike an earthquake, a fundamental force that rearranges tectonic psychological plates, not to mention the existing mental furniture. The rhythm of his presence and absence in my life has done more to free me—from captivating attachment, from narrow-mindedness, from isolation—than anything else I know. We seem to open to the Real whenever we’re together and neither of us survives the encounter unfulfilled…or unscathed. The third one of note here is a fine-arts sculptor, daughter, mother, friend, and for me, professional translator of body-speak or body-wisdom, especially for women. Her teaching connects people with their embodied and intimate strengths, though I had not understood her as this kind of teacher until the day before I left for a long business trip. I had been receiving teachings about the significance of connection and body-awareness for months before I awakened to her as a significant presence upon my path.
These are only a few of those who have shaped my path significantly, particularly as the intimate companions in whom I know my life remain unmentioned. Each shares a quality of “significance for the path” I know as my spiritual life today. What makes them good teachers, who both heal and challenge, even wound? Do they even consider themselves teachers of significance for a spiritual path? Do they have other students, particularly those who are aware of receiving teachings that shed such light? Do they have characteristics in common—style or traits by which others may recognize and authorize such teaching in their own lives? In a time of great institutional and cultural upheaval, how do we recognize teachers and teachings that shed light on a spiritual path? Without institutional continuity, in times of institutional decline and increased discontinuity(ies), how do we recognize and authorize those who will teach us, and those who come after us, in a life-giving path of shared values and compassionate care of others, our world? Significantly for me, here, what words do we have for our own teachers? What do I have to teach my teachers, here?
Time, and future postings will tell…
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