FALLING UPWARD

Readers of Jung will be familiar with his thinking about the second half of life in the overall individuation process. In this perceptive and sympathetic book, Fr Richard Rohr looks at the relationship between the two halves and the challenges of making a transition from one to the other. Many never manage it, preferring to remain within the comfort zone of conformity and continuing their lives without being aware of what Rohr calls 'the task within the task', the underlying flow of life beneath the surface events. This involves what he calls necessary suffering, 'falling upward' by falling and recovery as a central theme of spiritual growth. The way up is the way down. This is mirrored in death and renewal in nature, and death and rebirth in the hero's journey, exemplified by the Odyssey.

Strikingly, he states that death is largely a threat to those who have not yet lived their life. In the first instance, we need to build a strong ego structure in order to be able to transcend it. Then we can begin to listen to the law of the heart, or the voice of God within as we go on a further journey into the depths of life and therefore of ourselves. This inner compass can lead us home, to the Centre or Nostos of John Moriarty. We need to be able to balance the law and freedom and reconcile the contradictions of life rather than trying to solve them as we would have a problem. We have to recognise closures and endings as transitions that draw us into a new phase of life. From an initiation viewpoint, this means dying before we die, being drawn by the soul rather than driven by the ego.

The Christian message emphasises grace and sin as a potential gateway to transformation and overcoming of hubris. This is more than 'St management' undertaken by many churches and involves understanding the tragic sense of life. The essential point is that God is with us, we are not alone as we are led beyond the edge of our own resources; we may lose something but gain something infinitely more precious. This requires moral courage and climbing out of the crab bucket. Fr Rohr explains this significant analogy as the crowd who attempts to climb out of the bucket is pulled back in by the other crabs - anyone who has tried to do this will know exactly what is meant. He sums this up by saying that 'we are created with an inner drive and necessity that sends all of us looking for our True Self, whether we know it or not. This journey is a spiral and never a straight line. It invites us into the mystery and depth of life and indeed of death. It is a journey towards full consciousness and full seeing.

If we are lucky and persevere, we can achieve a second simplicity referred to by TS Eliot in his Four Quartets as costing not less than everything. The saint has gone beyond their persona and encountered the shadow. This leads to genuine humility and a loving attitude towards all. As Richard remarks, 'truly holy people are always humble people.' They recognise our common humanity at a deeper level and combine fruitful activity with a contemplative attitude, thinking in both-and ways rather than the exclusive either-or. Here the great poets and mystics are our guides to falling upward and onward at the same time where 'the soul has found its fullness, and is finally connected to the whole.'

Rohr ends with a meditation on a poem by Thomas Merton, which he first encountered some 30 years ago. It is called 'When in the Soul of the Serene Disciple.' It conveys a message of inner guidance, of doing things because of you have become and living within the mind and heart of God. The alchemy of failure results in spiritual growth, as this book so beautifully and eloquently demonstrates. There is never any dead-end spiritual life, only the possibility of renewal, as there is Nature itself. As it happens, I am writing this review while walking among the flowers and tombs of Turkey, a poignant reminder of both death and the annual rebirth of life.