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CAN DIVORCE LEAD TO HEALING?

Is it possible that divorce can be a positive thing, in terms of spiritual growth?

I’ve written on this topic before (Divorce as Spiritual Growth, 2017), but that was eight years ago. Since then, however, the experiences and the memories of the divorce intrude, unbidden, showing up on the scrolling feed of my consciousness. Sometimes, this is quite upsetting. “Aren’t I done with it?, I muse.

In a recent dream, I enjoyed a very heartfelt and honest conversation with my ex-wife. I hadn’t seen her in nearly 12 years, which feels unbelievable that it’s been so long. Initially, we were speaking to each other from the opposite side of a glass barrier; but at the end, we sat side-by-side in a booth, like at a soda shop. With a sincere heart, I said to her, “I want you to know, I forgive you. I know you had to leave in order to be true to yourself.” She looked a little blinded by my words, but receptive.

Had I forgiven her before? Yes. But never in such a heart-felt way. Was this what Paul talks about in I Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (13:12) To love as God love is not, in my experience anyway, a frequent thing, if I’m honest. If it happens at all, it’s pure grace, because that is what God’s love is – an undeserved, unconditional gift.

I haven’t called my ex-wife yet to tell her the good news. I’m considering it, though.

I haven’t called her, in part because I think the dream is more about me. What I know from my understanding of Jungian psychology is that characters in dreams are most often about parts of myself. Was I actually forgiving me for all those qualities I projected onto my ex-wife. It certainly seems so. That would be true to the purpose of dreams – to help us grow.

But, this is what we do in romantic love. We project aspects of ourselves onto our beloved partners. My shy, introverted self, projects my outgoing, social self or uninhibited self into the other, so I can – unconsciously love myself through loving her. “She completes me,” we’ve heard in books and movies over and over. Unfortunately though, this trick of our psyches robs the other of a bit of her autonomy and freedom. She returns the favor, and all is well….Until it’s not.

As the rose-colored glasses lose their tint, and we see more clearly, we see behind the veil of romance – the rough edges, the bad breath after a night of eating and drinking, the competing needs and petty foibles, and irritating compulsive habits – we all have them you know. But if we’re truly responsible, we use what annoys us to take a look at ourselves – those qualities and characteristics in ourselves we’d rather ignore or disown.

Divorce can be a revolving doorway to yet another relationship and another and another; or it can be a doorway into openness to what that mysterious Self within is trying to accomplish — the project of becoming whole. The challenges and the gift of becoming the persons we are meant to be. Can I love the light and the dark within myself? Maybe only then, can I see clearly how to love another fellow traveler, setting them free from the laborious task of carrying my projections. Supporting them in their own journey towards wholeness.

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Knowing God, Knowing Ourselves — Is There a Relationship?

The LabyrinthWho looks outside, dreams.

Who looks inside, awakens.

                                     Carl Gustav Jung

In the ancient wisdom tradition of the early church, it was an accepted fact: we dream in order to know God. How, then, is this ancient tradition connected to the contemporary idea: we dream in order to know ourselves?

This, I think, is a great question for our consideration. It addresses the criticism of some who see working with dreams as simply a form of navel-gazing, a merely selfish — while entertaining — enterprise. While others, such as those involved in Christian dreamwork circles, see dreams as a way to bridge “knowing the self” and “knowing God.” We can, they claim, do both — and do so with curiosity, increasing skillfulness, humility, reverence, and even entertainment as well!

Death, for example, is a familiar theme in both religious practices and depth psychological ways of viewing the life of the soul. “Dying daily” to sinfulness and selfish-attachments is not just the perview of Christians seeking to become closer to God. For death, symbolically, speaks to multiple ways in which our ego-centered lives are confronted by the challenges of growth and openness to change — always a blend of hope and new life mixed with suffering and angst. We can literally “die” inside, for example, if we stubbornly resist adjusting to changing circumstances — classically exhibited in cases of delayed adult maturity or in cases of dependency on substances rather than relying on building healthier means of coping. “Letting go and letting God,” a slogan made famous by the Alcoholics Anonymous movement, embodies the reality that growth and change involve both dying to self and walking more intimately with the Divine.

So, while experiences of death in a dream — of either ourselves or others — can be deeply disturbing on the face of things, depth psychology and dreamwork open the way for seeing God’s hidden hand at work shaping our souls. Death can be seen as a metaphor or symbol, rather than as a conrete fact.

For example, a recent conversation between me and my wife centered around the death of beloved “parts of me” in a dream that I had the night before. It turned out that both of us were holding fears within us about impending changes in our lives and how those changes — which both of us wanted and desired — felt somewhat threatening at a personal level. Our discussion did not absolutely resolve the “threats,” but by allowing the metaphor of death a legitimate voice, we were able to experience a greater sense of mutual support, understanding, and energy for facing into the changes.

In the Christian tradition, the Celebrant at the Lord’s Table calls out to us in the name of Jesus Christ: “Come, die with me. Come die with me, so that you might really taste life and live fully!” And the promise is that, in dying to ego-centeredness, we will find both more of God and more of our authentic selves at the same time. Spiritually then, death is not necessarily a tombstone blocking our paths. It may be, instead, a potential warning, or an invitation to grow, or a mirror that shows us truths about our struggles, or even a spirit-guide who leads us onward towards a life of Resurrection, of hope, of faithfulness, and of vitality.

Amen