In the early 1960s Pete Seeger wrote the words and music for “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and recorded it with Tao Rodriguez-Seeger.
For those who are too young to remember . . .
Where have all the flowers gone long time passing . . . girls have picked them every one
Where have all the young girls gone long time passing . . . taken husbands every one
Where have all the young men gone long time passing . . . gone for soldiers every one
Where have all the soldiers gone long time passing . . . gone to graveyards every one
Where have all the graveyards gone long time passing . . . covered with flowers every one
And each verse ended with the question: When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Our world today is a mess! That may seem to be one of the great understatements of all time, but, a look at history indicates humanity’s lack of success in ever living in peace and love. Long time passing . . . will we ever learn?
Father Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation yesterday spoke important truth for us in this time and place: Once Jesus’ great and good news became a reward-punishment system that only checked into place in the next world instead of a transformational system in this world, Christianity in effect moved away from a religion of letting go and became a religion of holding on. Religion’s very purpose for many people was to protect the status quo of empire, power, war, money, and the private ego. So in many ways, we have not been a force for liberation, peacemaking, or change in the world. One thing for sure is that healthy religion is always telling us to change instead of giving us ammunition to try to change others. Authentic Christianity is a religion of constantly letting go of the false self so the True Self in God can stand revealed – now (http://cac.org, July 31, 2012).
From Father Richard’s book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life*: I find that many, if not most, people and institutions remain stymied in the preoccupations of the first half of life. By that I mean that most people’s concerns remain those of establishing their personal (or superior) identity, creating various boundary markers for themselves, seeking security, and perhaps linking to what seem like significant people or projects. These tasks are good to some degree and even necessary. We are all trying to find what the Greek philosopher Archimedes called a “lever and a place to stand” so that we can move the world just a little bit. The world would be much worse off if we did not do this first and important task.
But, in my opinion, this first-half-of-life task is no more than finding the starting gate.
I believe that we learn the skills and beliefs that we need for the second half of life by practicing – one day at a time – how to overcome our common problems of worry, control and exhaustion. In the next post I will describe an opportunity to be part of a learning community of practice that will begin in just a few weeks. I hope you will accept the invitation to join us and be part of our learning together as we continue our journey of living.
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