Life Circles
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started from and know the place for the first time.” From “Little Gidding” by T.S. Elliot
How do you view your life?
By that, I mean, do you see it as a linear journey? Kind of like taking a trip, where you start out, have a certain destination in mind, and then follow the road marks until you arrive? You’re born, set goals, accomplish them one-by-one, and then eventually die. That’s probably the way most of us see our lives. It’s very common to Western culture.
There’s another perspective that might be more accurate, and more fulfilling; to see life as a circle. An orbit, if you will. In which you continue coming around, and around, and around, re-living situations, revisiting people and places, but experiencing them as though it were the very first time.
I thought about this Friday morning as I was sitting in a rocking chair on the large wooden wrap-around porch at the St. Laurence monastery. I’ve been here five times, each time being a return to the same place, within very different circumstances. As I sat on that porch, talking with my friend Richard, this very topic of “life trajectory” came up, and the image of the Celtic Cross came to mind. That’s not too surprising; we were, after all, at a monastery where crosses are as common as the icons decorating the place. The Celtic Cross, as you recall, is unique in the sense that it has a circle that enfolds the horizontal and vertical “arms.” Tradition tells us that the reason the Celts fashioned crosses as such, was due to the fact they were so close to nature, and their lives revolved around the sun and the moon, which, prior to their conversion to the Christian Faith, they worshipped. But perhaps there was another reason for that orbital sphered that served as an encasement for the cross: could it be that they recognized the circular nature of life? Things are born, they die, they are born again. People leave, they return, they leave again, only to eventually return.
I invite you to put this into the context of your life. Think of places that you have lived or visited, and the times you have returned. There is a familiarity, and yet the experience is new, fresh, invigorating. Or what about people that you have known in the past, that you haven’t seen for some time. Family and High School reunions come to mind. What is it like to reconnect? And now imagine living life that way. Not just in the sense of visiting places or people that you haven’t seen for some time, but on a day-to-day basis, where you wake up in the same place, with the same life, and yet every day is new, fresh, an adventure. It’s a circle of life, in which ultimately, at that occasion called death, we return to the place where we began.
