R. M. was most assuredly faced
with death. She ended her denial. This in itself is a lesson to
us. Many with terminal illness persist in denial. Even if they
give lip service to their own pending annihilation they use their
religious beliefs as a security blanket, or they center their
attention upon children or to her "works" of their life.
R. M. knew she was actually, really going to die. Make
no mistake, it terrified her. Even though she was quite religious
her religion was never a naïve belief in promises of immortality.
She was too open of a woman for such a cheap spirituality. Rather,
her religion allowed her to look into the maw of that great mystery
that death represents. The same mystery we encounter everyday.
R. M. looked death in the eye, smelled its rancid breath and chose
life. She deepened her relationships with family and friends.
She continued to help others through her caring and accumulated
wisdom (not accumulated sun-colored circles!). She continued to
explore her own subjective experience through her journaling,
dream work and painting. She continued to notice natural beauty.
And she went "into" the mystery she interpreted as God,
not out of fear, or promise of immortality, but as the all-pervasive
condition of her life. Sometimes feeling anger, confusion, doubt
and frustration; sometimes with great faith, hope, abandonment
and love.
R.M. is the true hero. She truly, in reality, faced death and
triumphed. She triumphed because in the face of death she indulged
in what makes life worthwhile for us all: caring, compassion and
love both for herself and towards others. No Ollie North, no Donald
Trump, no quarterback, no rock star, no politician, no scion of
society can realistically compare with this woman. Compared to
her these others provide us with cheap jollies, immature sentimentality,
false hopes, illusory dreams and the continuation of our denial
of death. From them we find the pseudo-courage to go to war and
kill, from them we learn to hate, oppress and steal, from them
we reduce life to a child's game played by grown men, from them
we learn to live at the cost of another's life.
From her we learn about true courage. From her we learn
of the value of life. From her we lean what true health and fulfillment
might really entail.
R.M.'s "SECRET": SYNCHRONICITY
When I first received R.M.'s journal I expected to find hidden
"secrets" in the details of her life. While these were
certainly interesting what impressed me more was the over-all,
general thrust of her life. She had certain qualities and propensities
before her diagnoses that continued and strengthened after her
cancer was discovered. R.M. seemed to always fight against the
tendency to denial in every aspect of her life. Because of this
she was a very open, actively searching person. This is especially
evident in her relation to her own past as a member of what was
then the buzzword: dysfunctional family. Not only did she actively
acknowledge and seek healing from those past wounds through Adult
Children of Alcoholics groups, she sought healing for, and forgiveness
from her own children who were victims of the dysfunctional familial
patterns.
Denial closes us to knowledge, to input that might cause us to
change. Change is always a threat. It always represents the possibility
of death. So, in this respect R.M. was in some ways "used
to dying". Change is also always a type of transcendence;
a "going beyond" what we know or are comfortable with
here and now. In this respect R.M. was often spiritually courageous.
She was authoritative. She was courageous in trusting her own
experience of life rather than deferring to an authority (though
she would learn from authority). She was willing to go "into"
the mystery of reality. Because of this courage R.M. was unwilling
to deny any aspect of life whether that be physical, subjective,
social or spiritual. She displayed an incipient Field Model approach.
She faced questions and ambiguities in each area. This really
struck me because she really displayed this quaternion structure
and some of what we might call "field thinking"
When we live in denial of any aspect of our lives we live with
the illusion of an "answer" to the "big questions"
of life. R.M.'s resistance to denial results in the general outline
of her life appearing very much as a journey, a search, or a quest.
She can't even figure out her own feelings which are often mixed
and ambiguous. She wants to paint, but then dawdles about. She
is a devout Catholic, but very angry at the Vatican hierarchy.
Sometimes she would petulantly not go to church. She loves her
children, but sometimes resents them. She wants to help others,
but sometimes resents their intrusions. How much easier it would
have been to just decide upon a course and stick with it. Leave
the church, disown her children, ignore other people. Easy. Set.
Certainly attractive, and what many people tend to do, but a denial
of what the reality of her experience actually was. R. M. resisted
denial and so her life was always a searching, a questioning,
a journey in every sense of the word. I would contend that this
is what life is really like. People are ambivalent, with
mixed feelings, We don't know. Any claim to any sort of
"answer" is a lie and a symptom of denial of one sort
or another.
So, what are the hallmarks of R.M.'s life-as-journey? There were
many unique elements: the fidelity to belief, creativity, strong
need to serve others, inspiration from her dreams…. I have
decided that the Jungian term "synchronicity" best describes
R.M.'s approach to and activity in life. There was a vital connectedness,
a transcendent dialogue among all elements of her life. Synchronicity
approaches the life process as a relational whole-like a Field
Model.
Synchronous events occur in unison with one another. These synchronous
events are not necessarily causally linked in a Newtonian-Cartesian
kind of way. Because of our Cartesian heritage we tend to only
consider causal relations as being significant. Any blatantly
synchronous event is passed off as "only coincidence".
Coincidence of events, that we know are causally unrelated, can
be quite an eye opener. They greet us with a bit of surprise,
sometimes delight, When thinking about a friend and that friend
then calls we exclaim "Wow! I was just thinking of
you!" It has the feeling of a sign, an omen-it might mean
something. Rarely do we indulge this feeling of the presence
of meaning. This propensity might not be too wise. "Coincidence"
is a blatant, obvious attempt of the possibility of meaning in
synchronous events. R.M. fostered and developed her sense for
and appreciation of synchronicity by being open to moments when
seemingly unrelated thoughts, memories or experiences might appear
to be meaningfully connected. This is another way of saying that
she actively searched for meaning in her experiences of
life.
It is the "synchronistic attitude" (or "field thinking")
that is missing from modern life. It is the constant surveying
of all four main aspects of our experience for meaning relevant
to our lives. It is the absence of denial and the presence of
openness and courage. Adrian van Kaam has distinguished between
what he called "formative thinking" and "informative
thinking". Informative thinking is what we are used to (um,
depending upon cultural background.). The name says it all. Information
is logical, causal, usually not connected in any intimate way
with who I am. It is represented by a list of facts. Formative
thinking pays attention not to facts, but to how I feel in light
of certain experiences and encounters. It is how something relates
to my life. Do I resist or welcome a certain encounter or experience?
What is its significance for my life? Formative thinking is similar
to the synchronistic attitude. It is not a question of agreeing
or disagreeing. That would be a function of information. It is
a question of what it means to me, to the course of my
life: good or bad, true or false.
Everything can always mean something. This was R.M.'s "secret".
Picture a tree. In terms of information we might tell what species
it is, what climate it inhabits, etc. If we look at the tree formatively
we might think how its cooling shade is like the protective love
of our spouse. The green reminds us of our best friend's car.
The rough bark is like the argument of the other day. Formative
thinking is an active looking for, an excavation of, meaning.
Meaning that relates to our present concerns.
This should give you the idea of R.M.'s synchronistic attitude-her
field thinking. She looked for interrelated meanings in all aspects
of her life. She was always searching for new meaningful symbols.
She searched physical beauty, her social relationships, her religion,
her own sense of subjective being. She used her dreams, her painting,
her husband and children, her rosary beads, in short, everything.
So important was this to her that when one aspect was missing
she wondered about it. R.M. wrote down all of her dreams and often
commented upon what was synchronous about them. During a period
when she didn't have or remember her dreams she commented upon
this absence.
There might be a tendency to say that such meanings are not "real".
But they are very real and very practical. They
definitely have the power to change lives and behaviors. They
synchronistic attitude is the absence of denial. It recognizes
what I feel right now and what I is that is making me feel this
way. It is the human search for meaning. It necessitates courage,
openness, imagination and practice-it is a skill. It is a practice
that can begin only when we do not deny death. It is the practice
of human spirituality. It is the recognition of the deep longing
within us that is never satisfied. It is the recognition of how
our social values can manipulate us and are often based upon an
illusion of immortality. It is what propels the journey of life.
It is what leads to authentic health and fulfillment. R.M. practiced
this when physically healthy and so was able to cope with her
physical illness in a life-affirming, heroic manner.
The home stretch of R.M.'s journey began in April of 1987. She
was diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer. For the next 16 months
she embarked on a remarkable soul-making pilgrimage. All of her
experiences were increasingly viewed-interpreted-in terms
of what they meant for her life and impending death. She accepted
no easy answers. If life was a journey R.M. courageously put one
foot in front of the other.