Today's post in an excerpt from Dr. Susan Nettleton's Zoom talk on "At Home in the House of Life"
In the aftermath of the January Eaton Fire, I was flipping through Stephen Mitchell's poetry book, The Enlightened Heart, and stopped to read the D.H. Lawrence poem "Pax". (link below) I have read the book many times, but never found that poem particularly interesting. This time though, it hit me--that phrase, "at home in the house of life". Although I've never been a house person, I am surrounded by so much loss in these neighborhoods, that the aftermath has altered my perspective. Not that I have moved as often as some, but I have moved often enough to recognize that I am not anchored in a home. I am anchored in, loosely defined, the expression of my spiritual life; spirituality is my anchor. Hillside has always been about supporting people in the expression of their individual spiritual path. Yet, I--We--need shelter.
Shelter is a huge modern issue; just look at our homeless population in America. In 2024, the U.S. homeless population was estimated at around 0.2% of the population. It sounds small til you calculate that's around 771,480. Weather obviously plays a big part here. And now, we have to factor in climate changes, with issues of shelter, housing and migration. Climate migration is bound to become a growing issue in a time of climate change and uncertainty. So when we consider our personal homes and houses against a background of possible catastrophic events, home and house no longer follow the assured expectations of the past.
My focus for this talk is a spiritual state of being at home in the house of Life, in the midst of life's changes. So what does this involve? Home and house have slight different meanings. A house is structural, a concrete image or concept. Home on the other hand is more abstract with overtones of belonging, comfort, connection and emotional attachment--even if we live alone. But what is "feeling at home in the house of Life?" Now we enter the realm of spirituality, which is an inclusive expansion of your belonging, caring and connection--not limited by obligation, blood, friendship, name/fame/need or social order--the ultimate of Life and it's mystery. Is anything outside of Life? For me, Life is another name for God, because it is all we can know of God. Even experiences which seemingly take us beyond Earth life, are still Life, because we cannot get outside of Life.... Ultimately, I am saying that spirituality leads you to a place of surrender where you accept your utter reliance on Life and the Way of things. You surrender to the level of Life as Home, because this is the world you find yourself in now. For now, Life is your Home. You don't leave Home; if you travel, you are still at Home, because you cannot travel outside of Life.... We can feel our home as a specific address, or we can feel our home as the Cosmos. For our purpose this morning, the question is: to what degree can we be 'home', wherever we find ourselves? I am saying that our spiritual adaptability to changing times is linked with a growing capacity to find peace and protection, shelter, wherever we are.
If you can consider the larger field of home as Life itself, you may discover you are already home, the moment you stop searching for another place to be. So, Life is a house we never built, but we have built many constructs around and about it. We may want life to stay the same, but it never does. Acknowledging this to yourself can help the emotions that go along with being uprooted; transplanted elsewhere by circumstances you didn't choose. Ownership doesn't come into play here; you don't own the house of Life, we are aspects of Life, expressions of Life; we belong here, this time, this space, we belong here as unique expressions of Life. Property is a social construct; it has meaning in the social order, not in a larger spiritual frame. Society, and the world of ideas, theories, philosophies, politics arise from human thought and reasoning. What a busy business, humans make. (Susan Nettleton)
Sunday's poetry: http://poetry-chaikhana.com/.../Dovethatvent/index.html https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51925/floating-island http://poetry-chaikhana.com/.../L/LawrenceDH/Pax/index.html