The Pilgrim Self

October 8, 1967
Plainfield

The Pilgrim Self

Nothing is more false than to believe that in developing a self to live with, that one thereby escapes from, or is at ease to ignore, the hard and dirty problems of the social order. In attempting to deal with the achievement of a healthy self, there is implicit in all that is said an assumption that the more comprehensive our knowledge of self – what it is and what it can be – the more spontaneous and less coerced will be our movement from knowledge to action. When we come to understand self better, the more readily we will act correctly.

Because too many persons everywhere have not developed a healthy self, we need, and will need, laws enforcing rights. In this world, in this land, in this city, too many of us are troubled, angry, burdened by insufficient insight, confused by our obscure motives and with courage diluted by fears and anxieties. Therefore many times we fail to act bravely and wisely, alone or with others, in the social order. It is all too true that small minorities generally are the action centers for gains in the social order, usually at disproportionate cost to those who comprise the minority.

Most persons do not lack knowledge about what is best – peace and freedom in the world, justice, a fair share, and tranquility in our own land. But something happens. In T.S. Eliot’s words (from “The Hollow Men”):

“Between the idea
And the reality,
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow....

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the shadow.”

I believe in a religion of deeds, not creeds. I believe there is a strong correlation between self-understanding and effective community effort. I believe that no one of us reaches a level of complete self-fulfillment in this life; we are always becoming. But when we become increasingly aware, not only of the follies of humankind in general, but also the foibles of our own individuality in particular, we may be taking the early steps on the pilgrimage of the self toward greater fulfillment.

John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress while confined to Bedford jail. While in the theological framework of pious Christian evangelism, the story is, nevertheless, a creative and perceptive allegory of the journey of self from despair to growth. In the first chapter, Bunyan dreams of a man clothed in rags, with his face turned from his own house, a book in his hand and a great burden on his back. There are times when each of us feels ragged, turned away, and weighed down by a great burden.

We do have burdens that not only are heavy upon us, but also those burdens may injure others. Just one example out of many possible: some of our bad feelings take on an outward, hostile form directed against others. Those who have studied and analyzed the roots of prejudice against minorities agree that “the prejudiced person is really prejudiced against parts of himself. The way we feel toward others is the way we feel about ourselves.” We strike out at the world with the feelings we unconsciously hold about ourselves. When we strike out with those feelings, we intensify our attitudes even more. That old Roman historian, Tacitus, made an observation nineteen centuries ago which contains enduring truth about the self, “it belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.”

The journey of the Pilgrim Self begins at depth. As we seek to understand these depths, we may choose to walk through life with certain goals. Perhaps that is the book the Pilgrim held in Bunyan’s dream – the book of the experience of living.

First, among those of us who are not professionals in the field, a sad misunderstanding can prevail about the strong feelings at the depths we call the unconscious and the subconscious. Some persons seem to believe that the submerged feelings are murky, demonic, unhealthy, destructive; and that only through the processes of the rational mind can these negative feelings be re-polarized to the positive. Such is not the case at all. That deep spring of puzzling feelings is also the source of love, creativity, humor, and the longing to be a more fulfilled person.

Mistaken appraisals of our deep feelings are somewhat reminiscent of the story told by the famous Phillip Brooks about 100 years ago. A missionary returning from the jungle made an eloquent speech about the tribesmen who had been converted to Christianity, how they had seen the “light”, how they had been “saved.” The listeners were exhorted to make a tangible gift to their primitive fellow Christians in the tropical jungle. $5000 was immediately and enthusiastically subscribed. The gift was voted and ordered. A beautiful white sundial was shipped to the far-away village and installed in the center of the circle of huts. Then commented Phillip Brooks, “The tribesmen were so pleased by the wonderful gift that they built a thatched roof over the sundial to protect it from drenching rains and blazing sun.”

To think of those elementary drives, needs, and capacities down deep within us as only evil or negative is as much a misapprehension of their function as to build a roof over a sundial. Those forces were part of the human condition long before logic and rationality became valued in some cultures. Our feelings are natural and needed. To understand and accept them is to aid the self in pilgrimage.

Where does the journey end? Chaucer’s pilgrims told their tales on the journey to Canterbury. Ulysses finally came home to Penelope and Menelaus. The late G.K. Chesterton, that witty and wise writer, once told a story about his absent-mindedness. While away on a lecture tour, his wife received from him this telegram, “Am in Market-Harborough. Where ought I to be?”

The proper setting for the Pilgrim Self is not “where ought I to be?” but “what kind of person should I seek to become?” There is common agreement among many wise and learned physicians of the self that the measures of such becoming are contained in the qualities described as free, spontaneous, mature, joyous, understanding, concerned about self and others. Maslow used the term “self-actualizing.” He sees the self-actualizing person as, for example, most often compassionate and understanding of others, yet at the same time more capable of righteous indignation.

To be able to love and be loved; to deal with the harsh angularities of life as well as the smooth flexibilities; to listen as well as speak; to be alert to indignities inflicted on persons; to be responsive to both the happiness and grief of others – these are some qualities that represent personal levels of growth. Dr. William Osler, famous 19th century physician, teacher, humanitarian, described the whole person in the statement he called his “three personal ideals:”

“One, to do the day’s work well and not to bother about the morrow. I owe whatever success I have had to this power of settling down to the day’s work and trying to do it well to the best of [my] ability and letting the future take care of itself.

“The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, toward my professional brethren and towards the patients committed to my care.

“And the third has been to cultivate such measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief game, to meet it with courage befitting a man....” (from Farewell Address, 1905)

But how do we become such a whole self, such a self-actualizing person? Where are the roadside signs for such a journey? Wherever one looks or listens in the Universe, one dominant quality appears – growth. The direction of the Pilgrim Self is that of growth, too. I would say “amen” to those scholars who see the same capacity or potential and tendency toward growth in the self, the personality, as in the undeniable tendency to grow in height and weight in the years of physical maturation. Except that the capacity for the self to grow never terminates. Maslow pinpointed our potential:

“People with intelligence must use their intelligence. People with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the impulse to love and the need to love in order to feel healthy. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are used sufficiently. That is to say, that capacities are needs and therefore are intrinsic values as well.” (p. 144, PSYCHOLOGY OF BEING)

We must accept ourselves. There are inner feelings which come to the surface sometimes as ruinous emotions as well as creative expressions. Nothing aggravates emotional pain more than to refuse to reckon with it. ... Anger feeds on itself and grows riotous when one refuses to be open about one’s anger.

There is, however, a difference in how we accept ourselves. John Bunyan and John Keats provide an indicative contrast. In PILGRIM’S PROGRESS (p. 34), Bunyan writes of meeting his friend Harry and remonstrating,

“But Harry, why do you curse and swear. What will become of you?” Harry answered (in great chafe), “What would the devil do for company if it were not for such as I?”

In the language of the time, Harry accepted himself, but was unable to improve, to grow. Everybody knows Keats’ lines from Endymion,

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever
It’s loveliness increases; it will
never pass into nothingness...”

Not so well remembered are the words several lines down the same poem:

“Spite of despondence of the inhuman death
of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
of all the unhealthy and O’er darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of it all
Some shape of beauty moves away from the pall
From our dark spirits.”

It’s not enough to be Harry and accept our emotional pains, resentments, difficulties, angers, as inevitably confining us to a devilish mood, although accept our feelings we must, if we would grow. Rather we may recognize as Keats did that

“in spite of all
Some shape of beauty moves away from the pall
From our dark spirits.”

We have the capacity to grow – by self-direction or with help, we can become more creative persons. Creative artists, sculptors, musicians, writers, dramatists, are limited in number. But one may be creative in whatever one does, particularly if he/she makes no sharp division between his duty and his joys. A good soup can represent creativity or garden; or a well-done volunteer task; or teaching a child; or a professional assignment carried out with competence. But one must enjoy.

Growth means pain and uncertainty. As one proceeds on a journey, and this includes the journey of the Pilgrim Self, each step takes one away from the familiar and into the area of the new, the unfamiliar. Courage is needed too.

Thus it seems to me that the journey of the Pilgrim Self includes a candid recognition of the energies lying so deep in the self. A vision of the kind of self each may become – accepting our feelings whatever they may be, but not stopping there; going on with the strength given by the growth process – in us all, available to us all.

Can religion help? Decidedly, I believe. One of the great human adventures concerns the old patriarchal legend of Abraham. This old tale, ... usually interpreted as the establishment of a folk-culture religion. (Genesis ch. 12):

“And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan and into the land of Canaan they came....

“And he moved thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent and builded an altar.”

Abraham set out to go to the land of Canaan and to the land of Canaan he came. He pitched a tent and built an altar. A parable of the creative journey of the Pilgrim Self, as are so many religious myths and legends:

- Moses leading the children of Israel on the Exodus
- Jesus setting his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem
- Paul finding sudden and dramatic religious insight journeying the Damascus road
- Ulysses, Jason, the Buddha, Mohammed, the latter day Pilgrims who journeyed to Holland then Plymouth

One could go on.

A religion can encourage and help persons in the growth process of becoming. The help is greater when it is a “freedom-supporting” religion which provides the most difficult but also the most rewarding activity, whereby the person himself takes his own steps forward (not led, not driven) in the company of his friends. The growth of the Pilgrim Self need not be a solitary journey, even though each must find in himself the growth process which will help in accepting and conquering the strange, sometimes terrible, circumstances of living.

Another classic provides many insights into the human condition, the journeys of Don Quixote. There is a place where Sancho Panza hangs from a window ledge desperately, all the dark night long, fearful of a terrible plunge to destruction from a great height. Daylight reveals that his feet are only inches from the ground. Sometimes the desperations of our self can be shown to be not far from firm ground when new light illuminates.

No one is going to finish the journey to a more productive self, ever. Always there will be difficulties; always better goals for which to stride forward; ecstasies will be always the uncommon moments, otherwise they would be routine and unnoticed.

Much that is demanded by our times is not answered by the journey of self. In the social order we must contend with evil because the issues plaguing the world will not wait for all souls to grow sufficiently in acceptance, understanding and direction so that things will suddenly be set right. But I do believe we will be strengthened to contend for justice in the social order if on the journey of the Pilgrim Self we become stronger persons who not only understand thorny problems in the transactions of society, but also understanding more of our inner fears, confusions, motives, goals.

Graham Greene’s sensitive play, THE POTTING SHED, deals with many inner conflicts of the members of the Callifer family. We experience the journey of several persons wrestling with the past embedded deeply. The potting shed has been the place where a traumatic incident occurred. Anne, a 13-year-old, plays a character who seems to perceive from the beginning not only the twisted depth of the inner torture but also the ever-present possibility of restoration of the wholesome self. In the last lines of the play, Anne stretches and yawns,

“Oh, I’ve had such a funny dream. I was going down the path to the potting shed, and there was an enormous lion fast asleep.

James: What did you do?
Anne: I woke it up.
Mrs. Callifer: Did it eat you?
Anne: No, it only licked my hand.”

So with our deep, and sometimes torn and puzzling self – it is not an animal to be dreaded, but when awakened, a creative force to be accepted, understood, and employed in the living of better years.