Living with the seven dwarfs

 I loved the Disney movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” as a child. The wicked stepmother and her gloomy castle, the lovely innocent Snow White, the little house in the forest, the mining dwarfs, and the handsome prince who rescues them—all of it fascinated me. And then, of course, there was the scary Disneyland ride when I plunged into the dark mine, screaming in a childlike mixture of fear and silliness. I wished it didn’t end so soon.

I’m not sure who I identified with. Every little girl in some sense aspires to be a princess. If I did identify with Snow White, I soon grew out of it. Too much trouble to be nice and pretty 100% of the time. I was occasionally naughty, but even so, I wasn’t the wicked witch either.

Now I know why I could never fully identify with Snow White. I’m the dwarfs! All seven of them. I always have been. Even more so now in my “golden years.” I live with these dwarfs as they are nestled snuggly in my personality. Sometimes they struggle for ascendency. Other times they all get along together, digging for diamonds.  “Hi Ho Hi Ho, it’s off to work we go!” 

I’m definitely Bashful. I’m basically an introvert. While I love many people, I need to retire from social events in order to re-energize in silence and solitude. I love reading and writing (but draw the line at arithmetic). Walking in the woods, meditation, prayer—I’m drawn to these activities. In a group situation, I’m the quiet one. It bothered me as a young person, but now as I’m growing older, I find myself at peace, even liking my Bashful self.

In contrast, I’m also Doc, the leader of the dwarfs. I actually enjoy public speaking. I like to work on projects in teams and am frequently the team leader. I’m a coordinator, an organizer. Bashful and Doc don’t aways get along. When Doc teaches a class, Bashful reminds him that he doesn’t know all that much and maybe isn’t the right person to be up front. Bashful wants to keep quiet; Doc wants to speak up, make a contribution. I’ve learned that when the two of them work together in a spirit of confident humility, life goes more smoothly. It’s taken years to come to this understanding.

I’m Dopey. Definitely Dopey. I like to have fun, even to the point of being silly. I can’t imagine life without humor. I love to make people laugh. As a child and now as an advanced grown-up, I try to hold life lightly.

I admit it. I’m Grumpy. I hold life very seriously and want other people to do likewise. When they don’t, I can get angry. Some days I wake up moody and if Hal tries to talk me out of it—well, he doesn’t try any more. He’s learned.

I’m genuinely Happy. The joy of the Lord is my strength. I wake up quoting ee cummings’ poem, 

I thank you God for most this amazing 
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees 
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything 
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

When I walk among the trees, my spirit says yes yes yes yes. I accept this stage of life—old—as the best so far.

I’m Sleepy. More than I used to be. These old bones want to stay put in my easy-chair. When I walk among the trees, I get tired. This disturbs me. I haven’t yet come to peace with Sleepy’s growing demands on my body.

I’m Sneezy. Physically, I’m not who I used to be. A lot of the time, it’s the little things about my body that disturb me. Rather than Sneezy, a better name for me would be Dizzy. At my age, I have to accept these limitations. I confess to being nervous about what lies ahead.

These are the seven dwarfs who all live inside me: Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, and Sneezy. Actually, the list could include other dwarfs such as Friendly, Creative, and Spiritual. (Can you imagine a dwarf named Spiritual? How would Disney depict him?) What other dwarfs do we need to invite into the house?

All of this goes to say that we as persons are hard to define. Some of our personality traits we’ve carried from early childhood, and they are still part of us. Others have developed through life, circumstances, relationships, spiritual experiences, and on and on. And we’re all different and complex. At the same time that we’re all alike and basically simple critters.

(Isn’t this fun?)

Actually I don’t pay much attention to the categories anymore. Most of the time, I just am, without naming myself Grumpy or Dopey. Even so, I’ve found this exercise helpful.

What about you? Who do you identify with? You just might be Snow White. Or the wicked stepmother (but probably not). Or both, plus a dwarf or two.

Let me know.

The making of an old soul

 I recently read a book by Carol Orsborn called, The Making of an Old Soul. I was drawn to the title by association with another book, The Diary of an Old Soul (1880), a devotional book of poetry by one of my favorite authors, George MacDonald. MacDonald’s fairy tales have been a source of joy for years; one of those books led to CS Lewis’s conversion to Christianity. So if MacDonald identified himself as a “old soul,” I was open to the idea.

I had the mental picture of an old soul as someone old (naturally), wise, and kind. White-headed, of course. But a simple dictionary definition tells me that an old soul is “someone who is wise and thoughtful beyond their years,” no matter how old they are. A young child could have the eyes of an old soul.

The subtitle of Orsborn’s book shows her understanding of an old soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life’s Promises. That subtitle gave me pause, wondering if this was another pollyannaish book on how wonderful is it to be old and wise. That pause almost came to a full stop as I read in the prelude that “At last, everything makes sense…. We have, in fact, burst through age to freedom.” The realist in me wonders if that is even possible; the cynic just snickers.

But I decided to give Orsborn a chance and I read the book. I’m glad I did. I found it interesting, thought-provoking, and, if not transformative, at least hopeful. While I take her conclusions with a grain of salt, I appreciate the chance to wrestle with the ideas.

In most of the book, Orsborn takes us through the different life stages in spiritual/psychological development, following her own 11 stages in what she calls the Arc of Life. She begins before birth where the pre-born person is united with God. This is an old idea. I remember reading in high school William Wordsworth’s long poem, “Intimations of Immorality” (“The child is the father of the man” and so on). It’s an interesting concept which I don’t intend to discuss here. 

Orsborn takes us from birth, the original and most profound trauma of separation from the mother’s womb--and from God. “Being born hurts … one’s first reaction upon expulsion from the womb is to howl,” she comments. We then travel through the stages of forming our identity, adopting masks to hide aspects of ourselves we don’t like, recognizing and discarding the masks, etc., etc. It’s very interesting, with some good insights. 

Finally, according to her theory, we reach the beginnings of old age. This is the part of the book where I begin to pay attention. The author names this stage "The Void." One looks back on life and wonders where the dreams went and if it was worth it all. 

Probably most of us confront these thoughts to some degree, some people more than others. She writes, “It is the dissonance between our expectations and our outcomes, both in regard to what we expect of the world, but also, and more to the point, what we expect of ourselves, that causes the pain….” This is the stage of crisis, of looking our past losses fully in the face. Orsborn writes, “And now you are once again at a crossroads with a new choice to make: Will you choose despair, or will you choose freedom?”

Then comes the stage of "Conscious Aging." This was a new term to me. Actually, it’s the title of a movement, The Conscious Aging Movement, and Carol Orsborn is one of the key players of the movement, devoting her blog to the topic. If we want to advance to the ultimate stage of becoming an old soul, this Conscious Aging stage is time to choose, to “confront and then clear away the debris of regret, victimhood, blame, self-doubt, and all manner of misunderstanding from your path.” Sound good to me, at any stage.

To help that happen we enter the stage of "The Big Reveal." In order to progress in spiritual development, we need “something more” than our own efforts. Orsborn calls that “something more” God. (I was relieved to read that as there had been scant mention of the divine so far.) The Reveal is a mystical experience that surprises us and allows us to finally understand the mystery of our life. The grown-up infant finally gets reunited with God.

Orsborn had that experience herself during the pandemic while she was disconsolately wandering through a cemetery. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with the sense of the beauty and goodness of the world, as well as her own personal beauty and worth. It changed her life, she writes. So she went on to make this a normative experience. 

I have a problem with that. I’ve had some fairly substantial moments of insight, along with a lot of little experiences. And they’ve happened throughout my life, not just on the cusp of old age. 

Finally, if we’ve made it this far (and not everyone does—in fact, the society of old souls is not large), we are now an old soul. “You’ll know you made it to the world of old souls when things that once caused you pain or compulsion no longer carry the power to devastate.” That sounds like a good mark of emotional maturity. 

In describing herself as an inhabitant of the “world of old souls,” Orsborn says, “What was the essence of this new experience of myself in relation to the world? It was that I was ordinary. And what’s more, my ordinary self was sufficient.” Life in this land is not free of difficulties, she informs us. We’re still human, and old age is not easy, but now we have the freedom to hold those difficulties lightly. 

Congratulations if you’ve made it through his book review. I found much that was positive, along with stuff that I’m not altogether sure about. Some of what she says about old souls sounds like growing to maturity, to put it simply. (Or not. Is growth to maturity simple?) Orsborn makes no claims to be a Christian and the lack of the work of the Holy Spirit of Christ is a void in the book. But that doesn’t mean there’s not value or truth to be found.

One of my conclusions is that I am not an old soul. At least not yet. I’m a project in the making. On the level of faith, St. Paul tells us that as we look to Christ, little by little, from glory to glory, we are being changed into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). I’m fine with the little-by-little part as I grow older. And more than fine with the hope of becoming like Jesus. 

As to whether or not I’m an official old soul, well, I’m not going to worry about it. 

Old souls or dead fish?

 I was planning on writing this blog as a reflection on a book I just read, The Making of an Old Soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life’s Promise. The book itself sounded promising. As I got into it, I grew enthusiastic and began highlighting many sentences and even paragraphs. “This is good stuff,” I told myself, with my usual intellectual insight.

But before I finished, I was having second thoughts about the book. I was going to write the blog last night, but these pesky second thoughts were battling in my brain, so I decided to postpone the writing and sleep on it. A good night’s sleep often clarifies matters.

But I woke up early this morning with a crazy dream. I believe in the importance of dreams, the dreams you remember. Most of my dreams I forget the moment I wake up. They entice me and I want to hold onto them, but it’s like grabbing a fistful of mist. Nothing stays. But if a dream remains in my mind, I know it’s important. It might be a message from God. Seriously. Sometimes that happens. Mostly, though, my dreams tell me something about myself, something it would be good for me to attend to.

Dream analysis can be tricky and I’m no psychologist. Writing a dream usually helps me make sense of it. And, of course, if I don’t write it down immediately, I’ll forget it by the end of the morning. Even remembered dreams are elusive. They can slip away like a wet fish in the hand.

Speaking of fish, that’s what last night’s dream was about. And since I have not yet reached any conclusion about the old-souls book, I’m going to write my dream here in this blog and let you help me interpret it.

Okay. Here goes.

I was on a road trip with someone (who? the details are already slipping away), and we were parked in a small, run-down town out in nowhere. We got a meal in a local café and then were about to leave when we were apprehended by the law. With no explanations, the sheriff grabbed us and took us to the local jail. I was pleading for mercy. The sheriff impounded my car, put my companion in jail, and said he would go easy on me if I would do him the favor of delivering a load of fish to some restaurant in Los Angeles.

I agreed. The sheriff and his men then loaded a bunch of fish, including a huge tuna, into the back seat of a gold-painted station wagon, gave me the keys, and waved good-bye.

I drove off quickly, wanting to get away from the whole scene. Apparently, I didn’t give a thought to my companion back in the town jail. He just disappears from the dream. I also didn’t give a thought to the fact that these fish had not been packed in ice and placed in a container. They were just lying on the floor and back seat. 

It wasn’t too long before I did give that a thought.

I was driving through the desert. It looked like Death Valley (through which I have actually driven, in real life). As the day progressed and the sun got higher in the sky, I thought about those fish. My nose thought about them. Although the car had air-conditioning, it was so hot outside, the fish were beginning to stink. And it dawned on me just how mean and nasty that sheriff was. This fish delivery thing was merely revenge.

Soon I had to stop the car and do something about the whole mess. I had no idea how far it was to Los Angeles.  I got out. The desert sun beat down with such intensity it gave me a headache. I opened the back door and began tossing fish to the side of the road. It was hard when I got the huge tuna, but with lots of tugging and sweating and panting and cursing the sheriff, I managed to drag the thing out of the car. Only to discover that underneath all the fish lay a corpse.

On that note I woke up.

Can you see why I need help in interpretation?

I don’t think this dream was a message from God.

So, what is it trying to tell me about myself? Why was this dream important enough to be remembered? 

(At this point, you’re probably wishing I had stuck with a reflection on old souls.)

Interpretation begins with observations and questions. Who was my companion and why did he just disappear? Who was the sheriff? It seems obvious that he did not represent the law since justice never entered the dream. And the fish? The gold station-wagon? The desert? Who was the dead man?

Does this have anything to do with growing older?

Or is it something else?

A little while ago Hal came in from his early morning walk and I shared the dream with him. He’s the best dream-interpreter I know. He immediately connected the dream to the current political situation in our country and told me it could be a reflection of my fears. He might be right.

Last night I watched the evening news with Hal. I had previously decided I wouldn’t do that anymore as it can be too upsetting, but something seems to draw me to the TV. Partly it’s because it’s been our routine for years, to watch the evening news together and then discuss the issues. But because of the tension and chaos in our national life, I’d decided to take a break and get my news through other sources. Last night I gave in and joined Hal in front of the TV. It was, of course, upsetting.

Then we went to bed, but I couldn’t get to sleep, which is not surprising. So I got up and went out to the living room to pray. I prayed for our national leaders. I prayed for Congress and the Supreme Court. I prayed for all the people in other countries who are paying the consequences of the abrupt cutting off of aid. I prayed for the thousands of federal workers now without a job. I prayed for my Hispanic friends here in town who live with increased levels of fear and insecurity. I lamented and called out for mercy. Then I went back to bed and slept.

And early this morning—the dream.

Does the dream symbolically reflect reality? Or my perception of reality? It’s undoubtedly a projection of my fears.

And I need to face the fears.

I don’t think I’ll want to eat fish in the near future. That’s a problem since the retirement community serves lots of fish. I usually like it.

Next week’s blog—no fish or corpses. I promise. Old souls.

PS: Please let me know your take on the dream.

Unruly saints and questionable angels

 A group of residents here in the retirement community share an interest in family genealogies. They have the technology and resources for their investigations, and they encourage each other along.

We all want to know more about our ancestors. The Old Testament teaches that we receive generational blessings and/or curses through our family lines. Both life and death. The holy and the void. 

Russian poet Yevtushenko writes about visiting an orthodox church in a village: 

I am inside the church of Koshueti:
on a wall without dogmatic loyalty
unruly saints and questionable angels
tower upwards in front of me.

He’s describing the old portraits of the church’s “ancestors” adorning the walls of the sanctuary. Having been in similar Latin American Catholic churches, I can picture the old faces solemnly looking down.

In the temple of my imagination, I can see the portraits of my ancestors in a long line. As I learn more about them, I recognize among them several unruly saints and questionable angels. I hail from some very interesting characters. Thankfully, I have relatives on both sides of the family (my father’s people and my mother’s) who have taken the time and trouble to do genealogical research and write it down. There are many holes in the history, many things I wish I knew, but much is available to me and I lap it up like a hungry puppy.

Let me start by telling you about a famous person in my background. I hope this impresses you. My Grandma Nichols’ great uncle was no other than—are you ready?—the great Charlie Post, inventor of Post Grape-Nuts! Uncle Charlie developed a cereal industry that supplied the breakfast tables of middle-class Americans for decades. Think Post-Toasties, Honey Bunches o’ Oats, and Pebbles.

[Interesting side-note: I married a man whose grandmother’s maiden name was Kellogg. As anyone knowledgeable in American history knows, the Post and Kellogg families were arch rivals in the cereal world. I think the Kelloggs finally won out over the Posts, with Corn Flakes sitting on the throne of the breakfast cereal empire. It’s amazing that Hal and I get along as well as we do.]

Since I obviously can’t detail my whole family story (and you obviously wouldn’t want me to), let me give a few snippets that fascinate me

--On my mother’s side, my Great-Great-Grandpa James Mott Van Wagner was a Congregational minister who supported his family as a phrenologist (one who counseled people based on the size and shape of their skull). More importantly, his home was a station on the underground railway. My Great Aunt Edna wrote that her grandpa “was very outspoken and more broad in his religion than most folks in those days. He would not stand for any dissentions in the church. As soon as they took place, he would leave and go to another pastorate. Consequently, they lived in many places.”

--My great grandmother Gertrude Gleason was born on a farm in Vermont that had been “purchased from the Indians for a gallon of whiskey.” Another of the Gleason relatives had a family of 17 children. The last one was named “Mercy!”

--My Grandpa Nichols was an alcoholic and compulsive gambler which, during the Great Depression, made things hard on the family. He experienced a turn-around through Alcoholics Anonymous and spent the last 13 years of his life sober. Good for you, Grandpa!

On my father’s side of the family, my cousin David spent several years doing extensive genealogical research. At the time he lived in Salt Lake City which is the genealogical capital of the country, so he had ample resources at hand. He put his findings in large binders and gave copies to all us cousins.

David discovered that the earliest known Forsythe ancestors came from Aquitaine in France and migrated to England, then up to Scotland, and eventually to Ireland and back to England. Got that? In Scotland the Forsyths were an important clan with a coat of arms—four griffins on a plaid background with an inscription that translates, “Restorers of the Ruins.” Very impressive.

But David’s book of ancestor stories digs before the Forsythe line and stretches back to 300 AD with one Flavius Afranius Syagruis of France, my 43rd Great Grandfather. (43rd means this man was my Great Great Great Great—repeat 43 times!—Grandfather.) The math of ancestry becomes astronomical, considering I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16 great-greats, and so on. (All this before marrying Hal and doubling the count for our kids.) So I can’t really take too much pride in descending from Flavius Afranius Syagruis because millions of other people can say the same.

But Cousin David went ahead and listed some of my more illustrious ancestors. They include Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, my 32nd Great Grandfather; William the Conqueror, my 24th Great Grandfather; Louis the Fat, King of France, my 23rd Great Grandfather (1100s). My favorite is Eva McMurrough or “Red Eva,” my almost mythical Irish 22nd Great Grandmother who is said to have been over eight feet tall, had blazing red hair, and waged continuous war. She killed the enemy with her hair, braiding chunks of iron into the coils, then whacking away.

David’s list goes on, eventually narrowing down to my actual grandparents. David writes in his introduction, “At some point, if it were not for familial inter-marriages, our ancestors would theoretically equal the population of the world. But hindsight shows that our ancestors were an incestuous lot, and a brief look at the charts is enough to make one wonder why we’re not all insane.”

It would be insane for me to go any further with this, in spite of all the stories I’ve left out. I ask myself, “Who am I the proudest to be descended from—the minister/phenologist who captained the underground railroad or Red Eva?” Eva, I think.

Well, now that you know my claim to fame (Charlemagne and Charlie Post), I hope you will give me the respect I am due.

Who are your illustrious ancestors? Any unruly saints or questionable angels?