I have mentioned it before, but I grew up on a farm in a rural community north of Purdue University in Indiana. The town is called Brookston. Our first stop light came to the town when I was in high school. It was a big deal! It is important to underscore that I was not a natural farmer. I participated, did my chores, but I was not alive. It would have been very easy for my parents to curate me to come back home after college and begin the transition from my father to me to take over the farm. Psychiatrist Carl Jung would call this the Right-Hand Path in his view of the Persona System. Your family, your community, and their occupation within that community are like a wheel. It goes round and round, each generation picking up where the other finished. This can be helpful for a number of reasons. The resources available to you are self-serving, and the way you use those resources is consistent. The community retains continuity from one generation to the next.
As I said, it would have been very easy for my parents to curate me to take over the farm, but they did not. Instead, they used their resources to help me find my own path in life. I also needed to take on quite a bit of financial debt to pivot to a profession in music. That is a story for another day. Remember, I was not a natural farmer. I was not alive. American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, is quoted as saying, “Life has no meaning if you do not follow your bliss.” This is exactly what I needed to do. I needed to follow my bliss. That path led me outside of my family and community wheel. Jung calls this the Left-Hand Path in his view of the Persona System. It is important to clarify that this denotation has to do with the traditional mindset of dominance in hands. Most are right-handed, not left. A Left-Hand Path is dangerous because you have created an entirely new set of unknown variables for yourself. The most helpful tools to counter those unknown variables are the resources made available to you. Financial means are a necessary resource, but so is human connection, particularly to the interested areas outside of your family/community wheel.
One of the most obvious ways to make resources available to you is to work for it. I think everyone can agree with this approach. The other way is charity. Charity is so important because resources are not distributed nor made available equally. And here begins the difficult part of this devotion because our spectrum of opinions with the dichotomy of work and charity is incredibly varied. This is the tension we have chosen to live in as a church. This is the tension we are called to live in as Christians. Do you know how many hymns there are about working hard? I can think of a few off hand, but they still circle back around to a Matthew 25 mentality. Do you know how many hymns there are about charity? A lot. The reason for this is because we live in a dualistic society, wrestling with cynicism and hope simultaneously. We need to talk, sing, and be reminded about hope and charity more often to counter the cynicism. So that we might all follow our bliss and be shown and given the avenues to do so.
The world is large enough and full of resources to support those that choose either a Right- or Left-Hand Path. There is bliss to be found in both paths. My prayer for us all is that we might follow our bliss, and support others to do so also. Amen.
Adam
