March 19, 2012
Although
we haven’t distinguished – up to this point in our reflections
on presence – between transcendent and pre-transcendent levels
of human presence, it may be useful to do. As “embodied spirit”
our presence is manifested materially (physically) as well as in
distinctively human capacities, such as thinking, imagining, and
self-transcendence (we “go beyond” ourselves in fundamental
ways). That our spiritual life is embodied means that it does
not function independently of the reality that we are “in the
world” with bodies. Wendell Berry offers a reflection on
presence and placement in the world in The Hidden
Wound.
In the spring of 1964 I turned back on the
direction I had been going. I returned to Kentucky, and within
a year bought and moved into a little farm in my native part of
the state. . . . What I had done caused my mind to be thrown
back forcibly upon its sources: my home countryside, my own
people and history. And for the first time I felt my
nakedness. I realized that the culture I needed was not to be
found by visiting museums and libraries and auditoriums. It
occurred to me that there was another measure for my life than
the amount or even the quality of the writing I did; a man, I
thought, must be judged by how willingly and meaningfully he can
be present where he is, by how fully he can make himself at home
in his part of the world. I began to want desperately to learn
to belong to my place. The test, it seemed to me, would be how
content I could become to remain in it, how independent I could
be, there, of other places.
Berry evokes our
worldedness; in particular he lays claim to the
essential belonging that relates us to our immediate world.
The reality of such belonging is in keeping with Adrian van
Kaam’s insight that socio-historical situatedness is a
constitutive part of our foundational life-form. We may depart
from the place – “move on” as we say – but there is a way in
which the location that formed us will never leave us. Our
embeddedness in the world is a forming dynamic; place is an
indispensable part of our formation, part of the “fundament” of
who we are. This is true also of the other two levels of our
pre-transcendent personhood: Our vital bio-physical embodiment,
including emotions and temperament, are givens. This vital
substrate wasn’t chosen by us, nor is it completely changeable;
but we can work with it, in the projects of consonant
self-formation. On the functional level of ambitions and
capacities, we have more choice. Yet the functional ego strives
to be central and in control rather than submissive to a higher
calling. Spiritual directives calling for self-transcendence
may be perceived as threats to autonomy, to one’s ambitions for
power, possession, pleasure, etc. The ego may be mellowed but
never eradicated.
We are present,
then, in and to a physical situation (place); as a bio-physical
organism; and with focused concerns (ego). Humans are
characterized by their ability to incorporate these dimensions
creatively in their lives and in some measure to “go beyond.”
The distinctively human dimension at the heart of our life is a
longing for a spiritual orientation to our life. This
orientation is marked by three inter-related features:
-
Transcendence-ability: the ability
aspiration to “go beyond” – to transcend the
pre-transcendent “determinations” of our embodiment;
-
Direction-ability: the ability/quest to
find and follow a uniquely-inspired life direction; and
-
Incarnation-ability: the ability – through
the aid of formative memory, imagination and anticipation –
to give form to the directives we receive for embodiment of
a spiritually fulfilling life (as distinct from mere
functional ambitions and goals).
