Message.
Most of us are so invested in these first-half-of-life tasks by the age of forty that we can’t imagine there’s anything more to life. But if we stay there, it remains all about me. How can I be important? How can I be safe? How can I be significant? How can I make money? How can I look good? And how can I die a happy death and go to heaven? …You have to do your survival dance before you get to your sacred dance.
~ Richard Rohr
If you caught my newsletter this past Wednesday, then you saw me name my Life Message in 11 words: Slow down. Wake up. Pay attention. Live for what matters most. How do you hear these words?
If you had asked me for my “life message” before I was 35 years old, I wonder what randomness might have come out my mouth! But then, some folks are faster learners than me. What would you say? Do you have a sense of your Life Message? Does that matter to you?
When you try to condense the overall trajectory and meaning of your life journey into a few words, it’s easy for it to come off as cliche, as just “fortune cookie” wisdom. But when your words resonate with the blood, sweat, and tears of however many years you’ve been walking this planet, they land with gravitas! Something deeply true and vital echoes across our deeper senses, and we intuit that we have touched something sacred.
For many of us, our Life Message is actually forged more out of our pain than our ideals. None of us escapes childhood and adolescence unscathed; by the time we are teenagers, we know what it means to hurt. We know—whether we can articulate them or not—what vital elements of our soul have been denied us… and we begin a quest to find them.
Of course, we often “look for love in all the wrong places,” trying to fill that hole with things that merely hurt us more. Even religion. But if we are fortunate enough to have some genuine love in our lives along with a healthy dose of resiliency, most of us eventually find our way to ease the ache of our losses and find something (or Someone) to help us restore our souls to some degree. Here’s my point: That restorative content generally shapes and forms your Life Message.
As you look back over your life’s shoulder, can you put those pieces together for yourself? If you can, then you are starting to name the redemptive arc of your journey and to own your sacred story. Nothing is more precious or eternal than this.
If you struggle to name your Life Message, to pull together the threads of loss and redemption in your life, please find someone to help. It matters. Because you matter. The world desperately needs your sacred dance.
finding our way home
You may remember the Lenten series I did a couple years ago on the nine archetypal themes of Homer’s The Odyssey. I keep going back to this epic story because it is OUR story. It is the story of moving from your survival dance to your sacred dance, and it left Odysseus with his Life Message. Now it’s time for you to learn yours. Let me know if you want help.
takeaway
You have one great message.