Questions to ask yourself during periods of world-weariness or

[Cerridwen]

As I was googling for information on silence and spirituality I came across this piece.

Four Questions
Bill Darlison
Questions to ask yourself during periods of world-weariness or soul-sickness.

We all have periods of spiritual malaise, world-weariness, soul-sickness, times when we feel oppressed by life, or disengaged from things, and we can’t quite fathom the reason why. At such times writes William J Bausch (in his book The Yellow Brick Road), we should ask ourselves four questions.

Question 1: When did I stop singing?
He doesn’t mean by this: when did you stop picking up the hairbrush and pretending to be Mariah Carey? Or: when did you stop singing a selection of Elvis’s greatest hits in the bath? The question goes much deeper and really means: When did you stop singing your own song? When did you surrender your own uniqueness and decide to live an imitative or conformist life? When the voice is stifled the spirit suffers.

Question 2: When did I stop dancing?
This refers to the relationship you have with your body. James Joyce tells us that Leopold Bloom “lived a short distance from his body”, and a young man interviewed on television recently announced, “I thought my body was a useful vehicle for carrying my head around.” We are taught to feel disgust at our body’s odours and secretions, shame at our sexuality, dissatisfaction with our appearance. We are taught to suppress our laughter and to hide our tears. Is it any wonder that we are confused and that we retreat from the body, ignore it, punish it, abuse it, and stop dancing with delight? And yet, according to Walt Whitman, “The scent of these arm-pits (is) aroma finer than prayer.” How far away from your body do you live?

Question 3: When did I stop being enchanted by stories?
When did fiction and fantasy lose their appeal? When did you become obsessed by facts and start restricting your reading to biography, history, and natural science? All of these are vitally important, but they don’t nurture the soul like stories do. Ask yourself why is it that all the great religious teachers used stories, and why JK Rowling is set to become the first billionaire author in history. What chord has she struck in children (and adults, too) in her re-working of the old myths? We need history and biography and science, but we need magic and enchantment, too, or the soul withers and dies.

Question 4: When did I become uncomfortable with silence?
When did it become necessary for you to turn on the radio first thing in the morning, play your personal stereo or car radio on the way to work, and sit in front of the television all night? When, as a culture, did we begin to accept piped music in lifts, loud music in pubs? When did we become comfortable with mobile phone noise, road traffic noise, aeroplanes and, police sirens? “I think the intelligence of a person is in inverse proportion to the amount of noise they can bear,” writes Schopenhaur. The body craves noise and distraction, but the soul needs silence.

So, when you are feeling out of sorts spiritually, when “the world is too much with you”, ask yourself these four questions. They just might help you to identify the problem.

http://www.unitarianchurchdublin.org/Readings2.htm

[LaurenG]

1. This is a lovely reminder to Celebrate often in spite

of appearances! Thanks

[I Have A Dream]

2. Thanks for this, Cerridwen.

These questions are really important, in my opinion.

[LWolf]

3. These are good questions.

I'll give them a go:

Question 1: When did I stop singing?

For a time in my 20s & 30s, when I had to be other than "me" to fill the roles others demanded...until I quit.

Question 2: When did I stop dancing?

When I realized that no matter what I did, it would never be "good enough" or measure up to whatever ideal my husbands wanted, and that I would again be tossed aside for a newer model.

Question 3: When did I stop being enchanted by stories?

Never.

Question 4: When did I become uncomfortable with silence?

Never.

[villager]

4. have the new digs led to more dancing, LWolf?

Good to hear from ya...

Your "old gent" is still hanging in there, by the way!

[LWolf]

5. Hey, friend!

The new digs have led to more shoveling, hauling, etc., lol. I've spent the winter adjusting to a new job and living with a kindergartener, as well as all the "fixing" needed on an old fixer.

I'm so glad to hear my old friend is hanging in there. His young friend asks about him frequently! Now that the days are longer, we're finally going to get back out on the trail and use up some of that youthful energy. I have more irons in the fire than I can handle, but I'm loving it. I feel the call to dance as spring approaches.

Hope you and yours are well.

:hug:

[villager]

6. I have got to get up there and knock around...

Hanging with the boys today... The old gent meanwhile snoozes and barks for food from his pillow bed -- but no longer "knocks around" at all!