Sweet Synchronicity

In a box of old books, a friend of mine found a slim volume called Owning Your Own Shadow by Robert A. Johnson. Since both of us have been intrigued and challenged by working with our shadow over the years, she picked up this slim volume and suggested we study it together. The book arrived from Amazon in time for me to pack along on a recent journaling retreat I was co-leading. (Despite experience, I'm always hopeful I'll have some spare time in the evenings for reading.) During a break in the retreat, one of the participants came up to ask, "Have you ever read any work by Robert A. Johnson?" I looked at him, a little amazed, and pulled the book out of my journal bag, "You mean this Robert A. Johnson?" And within the week, another friend returned from a retreat in Montana where she had been encouraged to work on her shadow. She said, "They told me I should read a book by Robert A. Johnson." I reached under the seat where I was sitting and said, "You mean this book by Robert A. Johnson?"

Whenever anything is presented to me three times, I take notice. (I guess it's the Trinitarian ingrained in me.) Synchronicity is a Jungian term I learned years ago, but to watch it occur with increasing frequency in my life, I now take as guidance from the Spirit. I've read this first book by Robert A. Johnson and am meeting with friends to discuss it more deeply. I think you need courage and a group to support you with shadow work. Why? As a little boy said when someone stepped on his shadow--"Ouch!" It can be painful.

The shadow is a collection of those parts of our God-given selves that we 'put away' because we deem them not culturally, socially or perhaps religiously acceptable. Necessary for good ego development, but around mid-life it seems to me, they are tired of being ignored and start to erupt in unseemly ways to get attention. The surprise of the shadow is that it contains exactly what we need to bring to consciousness in order to reach wholeness and full integrity--that is, accepting ourselves just as we are, rather than as we thought we 'ought' to be. So it is acknowledging we are not perfect, and yet also in the shadow are parts of ourselves that got pushed aside because they were too brilliant for the general norm. Often there are parts of ourselves that are pure 'gold.' So the shadow also presents a challenge to accept the responsibility for this God-given brilliance. As Johnson says, "Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy, but to own the gold in the shadow is terrifying. It is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character that to find out you are a bum." (p.8)

This reminds me of Marianne Williamson's quote (made famous by Nelson Mandela)--"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?"

As a Lutheran, public confession of my shortcomings is part of the liturgy of my life--a confession I know I've needed in community. Yet this confession has also rankled me. As a Lutheran pastor, there has also been a part of me, hearing the stories of people's lives, that wishes there was also a 'confession of goodness' to balance the extreme guilt and shame that some people feel, unable to accept forgiveness no matter what I say to them. It seems that culture, society, religion reinforces an awareness of what we do wrong (yes, necessary), Yet we need to fully confess both our darkness and our light to be fully human--and to live our lives in full freedom.

More on Robert A. Johnson and this 'shady' work later. For now, I'm pondering what 'gold' I have been terrified to claim in my shadow. What may be yours?