Image courtesy of graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I read a lovely passage on the value of limitations, written by Parker Palmer. As someone who tends to be a bit of a puer (the eternal youth), I can easily dream of infinite possibilities, but struggle with the down-to-earth finite practicalities, which are born of limitation. For whenever we make a choice, we necessarily choose away from something else. If we choose this, we cannot have that. If I get married, I cannot also be the perennial bachelor. If I decide to become an accountant, I may not get to become a famous musician.
Here are a trio of reflections on the value of limits:
C.G. Jung:
"The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life...
The feeling for the infinite, however, can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. The greatest limitation for man is the "self"; it is manifested in the experience: "I am only that!" Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious. In such awareness we experience ourselves concurrently as limited and eternal, as both the one and the other. In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination--that is, ultimately limited--we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!
In an era which has concentrated exclusively upon extension of living space and increase of rational knowledge at all costs, it is a supreme challenge to ask man to become conscious of his uniqueness and his limitation. Uniqueness and limitation are synonymous. Without them no perception of the unlimited is possible... (MDR, p. 325)
Parker J. Palmer:
When a way closes behind us, it is tempting to regard it simply as the result of some strategic error: had I been smarter or stronger, that door would not have slammed shut, so if i redouble my efforts, I may be able to batter it down. But that is a dangerous temptation. When I resist a way closing rather than taking guidance from it, I may be ignoring the limitations inherent in my nature--which dishonors true self no less than ignoring the potentials I received as birthright gifts...
As often happens on the spiritual journey, we have arrived at the heart of a paradox: each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up. All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around--which puts the door behind us--and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls. The door that closed kept us from entering a room, but what lies before us is the rest of reality...
If we are to live our lives full and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials. We must honor our limitations in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us. We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer--and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives.(Let Your Life Speak, pp. 53-55)
Finally, here is a poem by David Whyte that powerfully captures the sense of how experiencing our limited self ("our sure defeat") makes possible the awareness of the unbounded, the infinite, the "largeness of life," as Palmer puts it, "that lies open to our souls":
Self-Portrait
by David Whyte
It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.