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Your Second Life

I read an extended blog today that was fascinating.  It was by Justine Musk whom I occasionally read, but do not know.  She is one of those people I would like to meet and befriend, but likely will never happen.  So I am content to know her through her writings.  I say that about her because it means I know nothing about her politics, religion, etc.  And at one level, it does not matter.  We read people to get what we can get and that is sufficient.

Her blog opens with this intriguing idea.  “There’s a quote by Tom Hiddleston: ‘We all have two lives. The second life starts when we realize that we only have one.’”  I can’t help reading something like this and wondering, do I have lives?  Part of me thinks not.  But another part of me wonders how Tom Hiddleston knows! 

I have read enough of Thomas Merton and other spiritual writers---contemporary and historical---to know this is not a strange idea.  Merton frequently talked about the true and false self.  I wonder whether this is what Hiddleston and Musk have in mind.  I eagerly read further.

Quickly, I ran into what came to be a key sentence for me.  Musk says, “Your second life starts when the world cracks you open.”  That is a powerful image---being cracked open.  Little did I know when I read that sentence that she did, indeed, plan on using an image.  The image she had in mind was a coconut.  The coconut came to be the dominant image.  The coconut would symbolize the two lives we live.

And only when the coconut---or we---are cracked open, will the other part---the other life---be seen and realized.  So in effect, we are all coconuts!  As she says, our “first life is like a coconut.”  Once again, I realize the power that symbols have.  Symbols are a kind a short-cut story.  And Musk does a great deal with story that we don’t have time to pursue in this inspirational piece. But she knows what she is doing.

For example, Musk says, “Symbolism and metaphor and theme get a bad rap from high school English classes.  But they are clues to the deeper life of soul, which is older than language and too complex and slippery for language to contain.”  There’s a phrase that lures me in: “deeper life of the soul.”  That is exactly what I am after.  I want to have a sense of my soul.  I want to be in touch with soul.  I want to live soulfully.  I want a soul mate.  I want friends of the soul.

I get the sense that our lives are really the stories of our souls.  But much of life is the soul captured deep within.  The first part of our story is a story of the soul deep and, perhaps, hidden within.  It is “coconut life.”  It will need that breaking open in order to be exposed and lived---we are cracked open.  Musk thinks the first story we live is our story, but it is a borrowed and created story.

She puts it bluntly, “the purpose of your first story---the reason you co-create it with your caretakers and your culture---isn’t about truth.”  That reminds me of my early story.  It was an ok story.  At one level it was I.  But it was not the real me.  It was the “me” my parents, teachers, and my own dreams created.  I lived that story for years.  It was not bad.  But it was not authentic.  As Musk contends, “It’s about survival.”

In classical theology this often is talked about a life lived apart from God.  That still resonates with my spirituality.  To grow and become the self God wants you to become requires cracking open.  Again classical theology might talk about conversion or transformation.  I am ok with that language, but I am not it makes as much sense for contemporary generations.  I like how Musk puts it.  We need to be cracked open.

She says, “The point in your life when you crack open---the why and where and how---isn’t up to you either.  It happens early for some and later for others.”  My cracking open began to happen in college.  I did not sign up for it, but it happened and I had to deal with it.  It was the beginning of the person I am today.  I am grateful.  Significant things happened.

One significant thing Musk describes in terms I like: ”You move from your head to your heart.”  So true!  We are given the grace of new possibilities.  If we are lucky, it is the ending of the first story and the beginning of the spiritual story.  I like how she describes it.  “Beneath the story you needed to live, is the other, deeper story that needs to live through you. When you’re ready (you won’t feel ready), it steps out of the shadows with love and joy---to make your life hell.”

Being cracked open can be hell.  But it leads to a new path.  The new path is with the Spirit and toward spiritual things.  Hopefully that is the path I am traveling now in my second life.

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