I first read the phrase \u201cfirst half of life\u201d in the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875\u22121971) years ago. It made sense to me then, but I probably was too young at that point to recognize how true it would eventually become. In short\u2014and this is my layperson\u2019s interpretation of Carl Jung\u2014he would say that the first half of life is the task that we think is our primary task. The second half of life is really the task within the task that a lot of people never get to because they\u2019re so preoccupied with the first task, which is all about making money, getting an education, raising children, and paying a mortgage. It\u2019s about tradition, law, structure, authority, and identity. It\u2019s about why I\u2019m significant, why I\u2019m important, why I matter, why I\u2019m good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of us are so invested in these first-half-of-life tasks by the age of forty that we can\u2019t imagine there\u2019s anything more to life. But if we stay there, it remains all about me<\/em>. How can I be important? How can I be safe? How can I be significant? How can I make money? How can I look good? And how can I die a happy death and go to heaven?<\/em>Religion itself becomes an evacuation plan for the next life, as my friend and colleague Brian McLaren says, because we don\u2019t see much happening of depth or significance in this world. It largely remains a matter of survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m sad to say, after fifty-five years as a priest, I think a lot of Christians have never moved beyond survival questions, security questions, even securing their future in eternity. First-half-of-life religion is an insurance plan to ensure that future. In this stage, any sense of being a part of a cosmos, of being part of a historical sweep, that God is doing something bigger and better and larger than simply saving individual souls (and my own soul in particular) is largely of no interest to us. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m exaggerating. That\u2019s all the first half of life can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s clear that if someone wants to be elected to a political office in the United States or any country, all they need to do is assure people of safety. Bill Plotkin, who\u2019s been such a wonderful influence on so many people in recent decades, speaks of the first half of life as our survival dance, and the second half of life as our sacred dance. [1] Most people never get beyond their survival dance. It\u2019s just identity questions, boundary questions, superiority questions, and security questions. We would call them ego questions, but they\u2019re not questions of the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The soul moves beyond questions of security and importance because it has discovered that it is absolutely important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1] Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche<\/em> (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2003), 84\u201385.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I first read the phrase \u201cfirst half of life\u201d in the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875\u22121971) years ago. It made sense to me then, but I probably was too young at that point to recognize how true it would eventually become. In short\u2014and this is my layperson\u2019s interpretation of Carl Jung\u2014he would say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}