HOMECOMING
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” Joy J. Golliver
In the epic story of The Odyssey by Homer, the theme of homecoming is a prominent feature of the story. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo and Sam, along with Merry and Pippin, come home to Shire only to find that their home has been ravaged, quite different from Peter Jackson’s version. When you scan the heroes and heroines of all traditions, after incredible feats of adventures, they all invariably “come home.” In his sweeping book of comparative mythology, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell proposes a hero’s cycle which ends with heroes coming home transformed. Whether you side with Campbell or not, what Campbell presents may be a plausible and recognizable pattern of the universal human journey. On the surface, there is the familiar version of coming home to the hero's motherland and family.
It can also be interpreted figuratively as “coming home to oneself, transformed.” This process of coming home transformed includes knowing and accepting oneself. In the middle of The Hero’s Journey is what Campbell calls abyss, which represents death and rebirth. It is after this crisis that one decisively enters the transformative stage. It is the same person and yet not the same. It is the best version and what God intended from the beginning. It is depicted in the natural cycle of vibrant spring after seemingly lifeless winter. It is ultimately represented in the spiritual cycle of resurrection after the cross.
I am in my home—motherland now. For a short visit. I know I have not come home yet. The idea of coming home to myself, transformed, is a process I have welcomed and recognize as being unfolded. I have had my fair share of crises which have required me to embrace death, letting go, and releasing. An aspect of my share of crisis consisted of the unique burden and suffering of leadership over the years while not ignoring the blessings of service and opportunities toward contribution. At times, I have tried to create and bring change not only in terms of vision and mission (why organizations exist and what organizations do) but also culture (how organizations function). On the surface, I have amassed a good deal of retrospective wisdom of what to do and what not to do in running organizations. However, the greatest challenge for me while in leadership over decades has little to do with external factors or with others but mostly internally—the mess I’ve seen in myself. I’ve seen myself naked, defensive, rationalizing, sugar-coating, and dishonest with myself. In short, I’ve witnessed the ugly underbelly of who I was. The moment when I accept “nobody is my problem” but that “I am my greatest problem” is precisely when transformation begins to take shape. Rather than further shifting blame to others, to external circumstances, or to God, I mustered up enough courage (which is really grace at work) to accept and own my dark side without self-condemnation. In other words, I’ve had to die.
Another example “closer” to home. Years ago, when our four children were in their teenage years, we went on a week-long camping trip which I proposed and named, “Like the Wind.” Correspondingly, the idea was to travel like the wind without a predetermined plan or with very little plan. So typical of type 7 father. . . Now that I look back, it is a small wonder how anybody in their right mind would accept my free-flowing idea and come along. Anyway, to my wife’s and their credit, it happened. The first night we pitched a tent in Montana De Oro camping ground in the picturesque and untamed central coast of California. Around the campfire, I asked our children to critique us as their father and mother and how we can improve. They shared honestly and thoughtfully and with specificities. Some went back years in their sharing. I thought I was a pretty good father, but that illusion quickly got punctured. After listening to their input, I aptly thanked them for sharing earnestly. What they shared lingered with me for years, and more than anything, I remember having difficulty forgiving myself. It still serves as a good wake-up call from illusion and “coming home.”
In my life, more crises are guaranteed, so I am not holding my breath, because I know what crises have contributed toward my transformation. At the same time, I know I am experiencing some level of rebirth, to use Campbell language. Wherever process I am in, I am not anxious or second-guessing. I am committed to coming home to myself, more than ever.
A formidable part of coming home to oneself is about discovering one’s gift and calling. This discovery does not happen without a deep crisis of faith, death, and suffering. I know this truth experientially now. The gift and calling are not a mere betterment of the sanctification of our soul but the capacity for solidarity and compassion for others. The more transformed we are, the more we come home to ourselves, we become the gift and service to others. This is the counterintuitive authenticity of God’s economy at work. The proverbial truth that “God doesn’t waste anything” somehow falls short. It is not the passivity of God that rescues and redeems what God can use, but the very activity of God’s expanding and enlarging redemption. There is no other way, it seems.
The act of “giving it away being the purpose of life” becomes a flow in that we do not have to try to give it away. We simply become givers. I resonate with Thomas Merton. “If we attempt to act and to do things for others and for the world without deepening our own self-understanding, our own freedom, integrity and capacity to love, we will not have anything to give to others.”