Am I fully alive? Embracing the tension in your story
God wants us to be "fully alive". What does that actually mean and how do we get there? We have three places to start.
This piece is part of our “Am I?” series on healing and engaging your story. Catch the beginning of the series here.
Early Church Father Saint Irenaeus exclaimed that the glory of God is “man fully alive”. Based on how your life is going so far, can you say that you feel fully alive, or that you’ve ever experienced it?
I can tell you that I certainly did not — at least not until life seemed so unbearably painful that I was forced to take stock of it, engage my story, and be drawn into the depths of self-knowledge.
Like we shared in this series’ introduction, engaging your story is the hardest thing you will encounter to-date because it entails entering into those deep places within yourself that have been wounded, hurt others, or are otherwise mired in darkness. You want healing, that’s where you go. No surprise few of us want to go to those places. And if not for the Lord and His mystical body the Church — who *do* actually want us to go there because it’s our path to freedom, love, and real transformation — we’d be helplessly stuck.
And that’s what we’re here to talk about today: given that God wants us to become fully alive, what does that actually mean and how do we get there?
We live for the tension (not the headaches)
A practiced clinical psychologist once told me that the picture of mental health is to hold two seemingly contradictory abstract thoughts in tension with one another at the same time. In light of this notion, let’s quickly ground this definition in the broader context of the “both/and” paradox exemplified by the Catholic tradition.
Without wading too far into the potential for inadvertently committing heresy and subsequently being excommunicated, Catholicism holds that Jesus Christ was both true God and true Man; He is the Word made flesh that dwelt among us; He is both the Son of God and the Son of Man; He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin — the list of paradoxes goes on.
This uniquely Catholic “both/and” paradox embodies the mystery of the Triune God, and we are instructed to let the same “mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, something to be grasped at” (Philippians 2:5-6).
The mystery of God is such that we cannot grasp Him fully; He is not contingent upon anything or anyone, as He is above all else that is. From our temporal and finite human perspective, God is the epitome of what we call here the “tension” in our stories — a “both/and” paradox that sees us teleologically ordered towards the Lord and being drawn towards Him while also fighting within ourselves the things of the flesh (Romans 8:5). Thus, the tension of your story is not some abstract notion: tension of every kind is inextricably woven throughout the journey of engaging your story.
Here’s our premise:
Our relationship with and in tension is a means and method by which God draws us outside of ourselves, “stretches” us, and expands us to become fully alive.
As the man with the withered hand was instructed by Jesus to stretch it out so that it might be restored (Mark 3:1-6), so are we invited by the Lord to be drawn outside of ourselves, into the tension, and thus become more fully alive. To understand how God draws us outside of ourselves, stretches us, and expands us, it helps to understand what the opposite of that is. Turns out, that’s pretty easy for us: we simply have to exist (thanks, original sin *eye roll*).
The ancient Catholic tradition, buttressed by Catholic theology from the gloriously brilliant Saints Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, spoke of man without God as being turned inwards upon himself, homo incurvatus in se. Such is the visible and manifested effect of man living for himself, in sin and darkness, without God. We don’t share, we don’t love well, we don’t receive love well, and we generally sit in our own filth and misery wondering why life is harder than it needs to be. At least I did.
Thus, it is the Lord who, in His infinite goodness, desperately desires to deliver man from his misery and pain; to draw him out of himself; to bless the works of our once-withered hands; and to pull man into the mysterious tension of life lived by one who is wholly human yet who lives with the Spirit of the Divine (that’s you and me). For we are told, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).
But what does all that have to do with my story?
Those scary feelings you’re experiencing are in fact a gift from the Lord — an invitation to engage your story and enter into the seemingly impossible tension that actually serves to grow us and transform us physically, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and indeed, in every way possible: this is the marker of how we know this is real and we are becoming fully alive!
The part I didn’t expect: none of it *feels* like we thought it would, nor does it come to us as we envisioned. So what are three practical steps to embrace the tension and enter into your story?
Step 1: Try some silence on for size
Of quiet the Desert Father Anthony the Great said, “He who sits alone and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing: but there is one thing against which he must continually fight: that is, his own heart.”
If you’re like me and you share a roof with Josh Miller, maybe you can’t get enough silence and treat it like Fr. Baum treats his beloved Yaris: gotta have it and can’t get enough.
But for everyone else, the simple practice of sitting in silence pretty quickly does the trick of engaging the walls of our story that prevent us from answering the Lord’s invitation to replace our stony hearts with natural ones (Ezekiel 11:19). The hard part isn’t as much sitting in silence as it is safely and comfortably learning how to respond to the deluge of meaning that washes over us almost instantly, overwhelming our emotions and thoughts.
Vocational discernment completely aside (again), this was one of the main blessings of living at the JPII House — there is structured time for prayer and meditation in silence each day. Call it a “forcing function” for engaging your story — I certainly needed it.
Despite the aggressive uptick in mindfulness meditation apps flooding the App Store, the Catholic tradition has been practicing meditation and contemplation long before it was cool — for literally thousands of years as it were. For that reason, we recommend the simple practice of sitting in silence as a simple tool to start engaging your story.
Here’s your practical indicator: if you can’t sit in absolute silence for even twenty minutes a day, there are a few interior items you should probably address lest you risk having them boil over (aka an adult ragefest, snapping at someone, or being disproportionately triggered by small rat-like dogs being pushed in strollers…gross). Do yourself and everyone around you a huge favor and begin the discipline of engaging your story with silence.
Where’s the tension here? Embrace the tension of the Lord’s use of silence to call to mind all the areas in which you suffer interiorly (such as anxiety); sit amidst the darkness of your old life as the Lord draws you out of yourself into the light of your new life; fight the lies of your wounds and sin involving others while wrestling with acceptance of the truth of your belovedness and goodness in the Lord.
There is nothing but tension!
Step 2: Please start writing in a journal
I promise this is not a self-help publication (yet?), but your story needs somewhere to go. As you sit in silence, I strongly recommend capturing it in writing at least twenty minutes a day. You’ll do it at the Healing the Whole Person Retreat; you’ll find space in the book Be Healed; and you’ll hear everyone from Sr. Miriam to your second cousin Bill’s grandmother testifying that it’s simply a good discipline to maintain. Again, if you’re looking for a sign, this is it: start writing things down. The journaling itself is not as critical as is your commitment to sit down to keep engaging your story despite a mountain of difficulties and excuses not to.
Where’s the tension here? Our minds move faster than our hands can pen words on paper; thus, we sit amidst the rapid pull of our fleeting thoughts and the more intentional formulation of our narrative in ink before us. Greek philosopher Plutarch said, “the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” Embrace thus the Lord’s invitation to explore the old vessel of your mind through writing, such that He can enkindle within you His fire which births your new life in Him.
Step 3: Share your story with others
As the Lord leads you along the path of self-knowledge — aided by silence and journaling — you will naturally experience growth manifesting not only between yourself and the Lord, but between yourself and others. This is the third critical aspect of embracing the tension of your story, which requires communion with and the joining of your story within a broader relational context.
This aspect, more than silence and journaling, demands great virtue and trust, as it fundamentally draws man out of himself in vulnerability to relate to an other. As man must leave father and mother to join to his wife (Genesis 2:24), so must we depart the dead relationship with our old stories in order to seek the rebirth of loving, compassionate, and trusting relationships with our new story lived within the context of our Lord’s love. For this reason we are commanded to love others as the Lord loves us (John 13:34), such that we may both give and receive with charity the unique and beautiful stories that are the dignified human person.
Practically, this relational transformation manifests in four primary forms which we believe comprise a healthy support network: philia (friendship and affectionate love), living in community, spiritual direction, and professional counseling.
These so-called support networks provide us insulation through the isolating effects of our brokenness; love through our self-loathing; virtue through our extremes; open-mindedness through our close-mindedness; and mercy through our judgment. These supports — in accordance with our self-knowledge at the time of consideration, and as exercised pursuant to our means and station in life — offer invaluable structure, wisdom, and insight to our stories which we may otherwise fail to see ourselves.
We thus highly encourage the prayerful consideration of these supports throughout your healing journey. Let us become as full of energy and love for the Lord and our fellow humans as the lightning in the above photo. If something in life is missing, ask the Lord and He shall offer a solution, as we must only seek and we shall find; ask, and it shall be given to us (Matthew 7:7).
Have a great Winter Weekend retreat! It’s been known to yield significant fruits including major life conversions and the meeting of future spouses. Just ask Kevin Landgraf and he’ll tell you!
Peace from Cor ad Cor.