The Geometry of Life
September 26, 2021
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
What is the shape of your life?
Not what kind of shape is it in, but rather what shape might you use to describe it?
It’s not question to overthink, although admittedly I’d be curious to hear more from someone who decided the most appropriate shape to describe their life is a parallelogram.
More commonly perhaps, we might describe or hear someone else talk about feeling “boxed in”, which technically describes a form rather than a shape, but nonetheless captures the feeling of being trapped in an enclosed space with no easily discernible exit. A feeling that can engender panic, indecision, and inertia in response.
And in counseling and communications work we often speak of triangles and triangulation where two people are using a third person to speak to or about one another rather than speaking directly to each other. A scenario that calls for removing the third person in order to connect the other two points, so to speak, of the triangle.
Then there are those of us who speak of running around in circles, which is fun to watch when it’s your dog or cat chasing their tail, but not so much when it’s a lived experience of expending energy but seeming to go nowhere.
Of course, most of us are more likely to describe a particular situation, time, or event in our life using one these shapes rather than applying it to our entire life. Instead, we more likely conceptualize and describe our life as a line, that is linear, and maybe those times when we’ve felt boxed in, been part of a triangle, or have run around in circles are just variously shaped knots in the longer strand of our lives.
There is something attractive about viewing life as linear.
For one thing It suggests movement, particularly forward movement, which suggests progress, which suggests improvement, advancement, growth and the like.
It also seems logical or natural. After all much of our lives are structured around linear markers. Those private and professional milestones we take note or keep track of: birthdays and graduations, accrued time off and years of service, for example.
And the linear view often has a certain optimism about it which could be summarized in the mantra of former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus from the Blake Edwards “Pink Panther” films, “Everyday in every way, I’m getting better and better.”
Curiously, that mantra is actually an affirmation coined by the French psychologist Emile Coue in the early 20th century. And while this affirmation may prove effective in certain circumstances, fans of the Pink Panther films will recall that for all its sunny optimism, it didn’t prove true for former Chief Inspector Dreyfus, who didn’t get better, but instead became more and more obsessed with eliminating his sworn enemy, Inspector Clouseau.
You don’t need to have seen the movie to imagine why. For all of us know life is not a one continuous march forward marked by constant improvement on who or what came before. Indeed for all of us life is a lot less direct and more messy than a linear conception suggests.
Still the issue with the linear view isn’t its optimism so much as its unforgiving rigidity. Which may be summed up in another quote from a movie that also demonstrates just how wide and to some, questionable, my taste in movies is. In the satirical comedy “Talladega Nights”, the lead character’s father, having been expelled from career day at his son’s school, offers his son this advice before departing, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
In linear terms we might say, if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind. So those times when we feel stuck, boxed in, trapped in triangles, or running around in circles, go from being knots along the strand of life to speed bumps or worse, a wall, blocking our path forward which means, falling behind.
But we human beings are smart…and never more so than today….or so it’s assumed. We’ll just figure out ways to untangle those knots, smooth the bumps, and demolish those walls on our path.
Feeling stuck?…No worries, “Just Do It.”, “Be All You Can Be”, and remember, “God has a plan.”
Now if for some reason those don’t help, you might want to check out any of the hundreds, maybe thousands of blogs offering 20, 50, and, for those who have the time, 100 ways (usually very cheerfully presented ways) to “manage” your time, relationships, career, and just about anything and anyone else that keeps you up at night.
And if that doesn’t work there’s always Häagen-Dazs (or its vegan equivalent).
Now, admittedly I am being a bit snarky here, but it arises not out of cynicism, but compassion.
Many, perhaps fifteen or twenty years ago, around Christmas, I was at the mall a few towns over from where I live hoping to finish up the last of my holiday shopping. As I made my way through the colorful, brightly lit stores with familiar Christmas songs playing all around, I began to notice a lot of people appeared more burdened than joyous. Many wore miserable, tired, and occasionally angry expressions. People were brushing past or bumping into one another, some customers were arguing with clerks, and sales people rolling their eyes at customers.
I took a moment at the rail on the mall’s second floor and just stood there for a while, watching the people below. Many, presumably most, were there shopping for Christmas or Chanukah, holidays of light and love and hope, and yet the scene I was witnessing was one of suffering, profound suffering. Suffering I recognized, in part, in myself too and which I knew outside the annual holiday shopping season It was a moment I will never forget.
The truth is clever slogans and easy platitudes couldn’t touch what I was seeing. Nor could the most sincere and cheerfully presented advice on any blog. I suppose ice cream might prove at least a momentary balm, but its hard to stop even when the effect wears off.
In a note about our first reading this morning, “The Origins of Night and Sleep”, the editor summarizes the passage writing, “Here the Creator, Qat, seeks to create darkness as a respite from relentless light.”
Relentless light.
The contemporary linear view of life normalizes and seeks light, relentlessly. Light and all its largely positive cultural associations comes from moving forward. Any pauses, we tell ourselves, let alone movement backward, is not only undesirable, but unnatural, signifying a descent into darkness and the largely negative cultural associations it carries.
The beauty and the truth of “The Origins of Night and Sleep” from the People of the Banks Islands is it reminds us of two fundamental realities of existence. One, that relentless light is neither entirely good or desirable, and secondly, that our lives have both a linear and cyclical dimension to them.
In our era of technical, medical and scientific advancement we seem to have forgotten both.
Indeed in our time it is fair to say that at least some of our suffering, including that of the people whose apparent suffering stirred me at the mall, stems from an attachment to the idea that life should be relentless light, and if not entirely free of knots, then ones easily and quickly undone with some willpower, a cheerful attitude, a pithy quote, the right advice, diet, a pill or the like. Otherwise we’re descending into “unnatural” darkness.
Something that can be exacerbated when people look at the social media posts and pictures of others who seem to have the lives of relentless light we can’t quite manage to achieve no matter how hard we try.
But it is relentless light that is in fact unnatural. Seeds must be buried to grow into plants, animals emerge from the darkness of a womb or egg. To insist on relentless light, like an exclusively linear view of life, is an attempt to place us outside the rest of nature, which curiously makes us less, not more, human. As the contemporary philosopher Alain De Botton observes, “We trade in brutally simplified caricatures, which leave out so much of our real natures, so much of the pain, confusion, wildness and extremity….We’re encouraged to present a cheerful, one-dimensional front from which everything awkward but essential has been planed off.”
Relentless light and the linear view of life that promotes it are both illusions. Together they form a narrative of separateness to which so many are attached and from which we really do need respite. Indeed, those variously shaped knots we encounter throughout life may be speed bumps and even barriers but they’re also a normal part of life that, incidentally, come and go with regularity, as much as day and night, the seasons of the year, and the very thoughts and feelings you’re experiencing right now, pointing to the cyclical nature of life.
Indeed, the wisdom gained and expressed throughout history by religious traditions as obscure as that of the People of the Banks Islands to our own hold that we are not separate from nature, but a part of it.
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation we covenant with the other congregations in our association “to affirm and promote: respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
Our lives do not run exclusively parallel to that of others and of nature, but are interwoven, and thus inextricably linked. And profound suffering, not just our own, but that of all life and the planet itself arises in part out of our inability or refusal to see this. As Jane Cull, writing in “The Ecologist” notes, Our present view of life is inadequate for humanity to live sustainably…We live in a circular world. We do not see or distinguish the circular and systemic consequences that this entails, particularly in the context of human relations, interactions with the environment and with the planet as a whole.”
But we can learn to see it and thus begin anew. Something we covenant to do as Unitarian Universalists. And we can do so inspired by yet another religious tradition, Judaism. Our Jewish friends and neighbors just observed Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, together known as the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement, celebrate and ritualize through reflection and action, the potential to change course and give birth to a new way of living. This reflective and hopeful spiritual dimension and practice in response to human folly and frailty is sadly lacking in much of the largely secular analysis, arguments, and blame games around so many issues from income inequality to racism to climate change. Each of which is worsened by a dominant or exclusively linear view of life feeding an illusory narrative of separateness.
Our responsive reading this morning, “A Litany of Atonement”, is inspired and informed by Jewish tradition that recognizes both the woeful and wonderful aspects of our nature. Calling us to reflect on the ways “both evident and subtle” in which we “have fueled the illusion of separateness,” it also reminds us we are neither meant nor condemned to dwell in relentless light or perpetual dark, but instead to, “forgive ourselves and each other” and “begin again in love.”
And so even as the years pass, the cycle also continues… over and over and over again…
Such is the geometry of life. And, with forgiveness and love, a spiritual life too.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be
September 26, 2021
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
What is the shape of your life?
Not what kind of shape is it in, but rather what shape might you use to describe it?
It’s not question to overthink, although admittedly I’d be curious to hear more from someone who decided the most appropriate shape to describe their life is a parallelogram.
More commonly perhaps, we might describe or hear someone else talk about feeling “boxed in”, which technically describes a form rather than a shape, but nonetheless captures the feeling of being trapped in an enclosed space with no easily discernible exit. A feeling that can engender panic, indecision, and inertia in response.
And in counseling and communications work we often speak of triangles and triangulation where two people are using a third person to speak to or about one another rather than speaking directly to each other. A scenario that calls for removing the third person in order to connect the other two points, so to speak, of the triangle.
Then there are those of us who speak of running around in circles, which is fun to watch when it’s your dog or cat chasing their tail, but not so much when it’s a lived experience of expending energy but seeming to go nowhere.
Of course, most of us are more likely to describe a particular situation, time, or event in our life using one these shapes rather than applying it to our entire life. Instead, we more likely conceptualize and describe our life as a line, that is linear, and maybe those times when we’ve felt boxed in, been part of a triangle, or have run around in circles are just variously shaped knots in the longer strand of our lives.
There is something attractive about viewing life as linear.
For one thing It suggests movement, particularly forward movement, which suggests progress, which suggests improvement, advancement, growth and the like.
It also seems logical or natural. After all much of our lives are structured around linear markers. Those private and professional milestones we take note or keep track of: birthdays and graduations, accrued time off and years of service, for example.
And the linear view often has a certain optimism about it which could be summarized in the mantra of former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus from the Blake Edwards “Pink Panther” films, “Everyday in every way, I’m getting better and better.”
Curiously, that mantra is actually an affirmation coined by the French psychologist Emile Coue in the early 20th century. And while this affirmation may prove effective in certain circumstances, fans of the Pink Panther films will recall that for all its sunny optimism, it didn’t prove true for former Chief Inspector Dreyfus, who didn’t get better, but instead became more and more obsessed with eliminating his sworn enemy, Inspector Clouseau.
You don’t need to have seen the movie to imagine why. For all of us know life is not a one continuous march forward marked by constant improvement on who or what came before. Indeed for all of us life is a lot less direct and more messy than a linear conception suggests.
Still the issue with the linear view isn’t its optimism so much as its unforgiving rigidity. Which may be summed up in another quote from a movie that also demonstrates just how wide and to some, questionable, my taste in movies is. In the satirical comedy “Talladega Nights”, the lead character’s father, having been expelled from career day at his son’s school, offers his son this advice before departing, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
In linear terms we might say, if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind. So those times when we feel stuck, boxed in, trapped in triangles, or running around in circles, go from being knots along the strand of life to speed bumps or worse, a wall, blocking our path forward which means, falling behind.
But we human beings are smart…and never more so than today….or so it’s assumed. We’ll just figure out ways to untangle those knots, smooth the bumps, and demolish those walls on our path.
Feeling stuck?…No worries, “Just Do It.”, “Be All You Can Be”, and remember, “God has a plan.”
Now if for some reason those don’t help, you might want to check out any of the hundreds, maybe thousands of blogs offering 20, 50, and, for those who have the time, 100 ways (usually very cheerfully presented ways) to “manage” your time, relationships, career, and just about anything and anyone else that keeps you up at night.
And if that doesn’t work there’s always Häagen-Dazs (or its vegan equivalent).
Now, admittedly I am being a bit snarky here, but it arises not out of cynicism, but compassion.
Many, perhaps fifteen or twenty years ago, around Christmas, I was at the mall a few towns over from where I live hoping to finish up the last of my holiday shopping. As I made my way through the colorful, brightly lit stores with familiar Christmas songs playing all around, I began to notice a lot of people appeared more burdened than joyous. Many wore miserable, tired, and occasionally angry expressions. People were brushing past or bumping into one another, some customers were arguing with clerks, and sales people rolling their eyes at customers.
I took a moment at the rail on the mall’s second floor and just stood there for a while, watching the people below. Many, presumably most, were there shopping for Christmas or Chanukah, holidays of light and love and hope, and yet the scene I was witnessing was one of suffering, profound suffering. Suffering I recognized, in part, in myself too and which I knew outside the annual holiday shopping season It was a moment I will never forget.
The truth is clever slogans and easy platitudes couldn’t touch what I was seeing. Nor could the most sincere and cheerfully presented advice on any blog. I suppose ice cream might prove at least a momentary balm, but its hard to stop even when the effect wears off.
In a note about our first reading this morning, “The Origins of Night and Sleep”, the editor summarizes the passage writing, “Here the Creator, Qat, seeks to create darkness as a respite from relentless light.”
Relentless light.
The contemporary linear view of life normalizes and seeks light, relentlessly. Light and all its largely positive cultural associations comes from moving forward. Any pauses, we tell ourselves, let alone movement backward, is not only undesirable, but unnatural, signifying a descent into darkness and the largely negative cultural associations it carries.
The beauty and the truth of “The Origins of Night and Sleep” from the People of the Banks Islands is it reminds us of two fundamental realities of existence. One, that relentless light is neither entirely good or desirable, and secondly, that our lives have both a linear and cyclical dimension to them.
In our era of technical, medical and scientific advancement we seem to have forgotten both.
Indeed in our time it is fair to say that at least some of our suffering, including that of the people whose apparent suffering stirred me at the mall, stems from an attachment to the idea that life should be relentless light, and if not entirely free of knots, then ones easily and quickly undone with some willpower, a cheerful attitude, a pithy quote, the right advice, diet, a pill or the like. Otherwise we’re descending into “unnatural” darkness.
Something that can be exacerbated when people look at the social media posts and pictures of others who seem to have the lives of relentless light we can’t quite manage to achieve no matter how hard we try.
But it is relentless light that is in fact unnatural. Seeds must be buried to grow into plants, animals emerge from the darkness of a womb or egg. To insist on relentless light, like an exclusively linear view of life, is an attempt to place us outside the rest of nature, which curiously makes us less, not more, human. As the contemporary philosopher Alain De Botton observes, “We trade in brutally simplified caricatures, which leave out so much of our real natures, so much of the pain, confusion, wildness and extremity….We’re encouraged to present a cheerful, one-dimensional front from which everything awkward but essential has been planed off.”
Relentless light and the linear view of life that promotes it are both illusions. Together they form a narrative of separateness to which so many are attached and from which we really do need respite. Indeed, those variously shaped knots we encounter throughout life may be speed bumps and even barriers but they’re also a normal part of life that, incidentally, come and go with regularity, as much as day and night, the seasons of the year, and the very thoughts and feelings you’re experiencing right now, pointing to the cyclical nature of life.
Indeed, the wisdom gained and expressed throughout history by religious traditions as obscure as that of the People of the Banks Islands to our own hold that we are not separate from nature, but a part of it.
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation we covenant with the other congregations in our association “to affirm and promote: respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
Our lives do not run exclusively parallel to that of others and of nature, but are interwoven, and thus inextricably linked. And profound suffering, not just our own, but that of all life and the planet itself arises in part out of our inability or refusal to see this. As Jane Cull, writing in “The Ecologist” notes, Our present view of life is inadequate for humanity to live sustainably…We live in a circular world. We do not see or distinguish the circular and systemic consequences that this entails, particularly in the context of human relations, interactions with the environment and with the planet as a whole.”
But we can learn to see it and thus begin anew. Something we covenant to do as Unitarian Universalists. And we can do so inspired by yet another religious tradition, Judaism. Our Jewish friends and neighbors just observed Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, together known as the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement, celebrate and ritualize through reflection and action, the potential to change course and give birth to a new way of living. This reflective and hopeful spiritual dimension and practice in response to human folly and frailty is sadly lacking in much of the largely secular analysis, arguments, and blame games around so many issues from income inequality to racism to climate change. Each of which is worsened by a dominant or exclusively linear view of life feeding an illusory narrative of separateness.
Our responsive reading this morning, “A Litany of Atonement”, is inspired and informed by Jewish tradition that recognizes both the woeful and wonderful aspects of our nature. Calling us to reflect on the ways “both evident and subtle” in which we “have fueled the illusion of separateness,” it also reminds us we are neither meant nor condemned to dwell in relentless light or perpetual dark, but instead to, “forgive ourselves and each other” and “begin again in love.”
And so even as the years pass, the cycle also continues… over and over and over again…
Such is the geometry of life. And, with forgiveness and love, a spiritual life too.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be
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