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Go Within, or Go Without
Navigating the inner world
This morning, I listened to a Michael Meade podcast — #386, “How we Become Ourselves,” and heard a story that first captivated me when I was teaching at Bastyr University in November 2015. Meade, a renowned storyteller and mythologist, spoke in the university chapel, which had been converted to a secular space. Yet the tile, stained-glass windows and ornate paintings still evoked a divine presence. He told this story…
… A wise old rabbi lay on his deathbed, surrounded by his students. He told them he feared the harsh judgment of God when he passed. The students revered this man and could not believe with all the learning and teaching, good deeds and caring he had done during his life, he worried he had not done enough in the eyes of God. He explained he was not worried about his life accomplishments, or how he compared to other holy men who had come before him… “I fear God will ask, ‘why did you not live more like yourself?’ And for that, I have no answer,” he said….
I had to pause Meade’s podcast…
A flood of emotion surged through me as it had 8 years ago when I first heard the rabbi’s story. Back then, Meade had said, “When you arrive at the pearly gates, the only question God will ask is ‘Did you become yourself?’”
