Another blog!... Why?!

Hi, I'm John. I hope to express here my own inner world: struggles, reflections, questions, desires, dreams, creations, etc. as well as to highlight and promote causes, ideas, movements, etc. that I think worth passing along. 

Why another blog? 

There's really no good reason to read this blog, there are plenty of others written by people with more wisdom, knowledge, experience and perspective than I've got. This is mainly for me. If you're my mom or dad, you'll probably read it (at least I hope so!). I'm working out my place in the world, and I think this blog will help me in that process of self-discovery. I make no pretense of having something novel to bring to the table, but instead simply offer authenticity as I endeavor to wrestle with God (Israel), or in other words, work out my place and identity like Jacob in Genesis. 

Richard Rohr, whom I had the tremendous privilege and pleasure of getting to meet two weeks ago back home in Connecticut, had a book published last year called Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. It spoke to me very deeply. I'm spiritually inclined, to say the least (though at any given moment I'm probably not being all that spiritually-minded, as in truly present and awake, despite my intentions!), and my heroes are people like Jesus, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Mother Theresa, the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Martin Luther King Jr. and Saint Francis. I've been deeply inspired and nourished by the lives - actions, words and solitude - of men and women such as these. They all demonstrated living in the second half of life (a Jungian term) at its fullest. They were living in the big picture, the unified field. They had heard to the call to work out what they were here for and they responded to it with their lives. This is where I want to be one day, beyond the self-referential, ego-centric way of seeing that relates all experience, all knowledge, all truth back to me/my ego. However, thanks largely to Richard Rohr's work, I realize that I'm not all the way there yet; in order to move into the second half of life, you must do the first half well. Before you can give yourself away, you must have a self to give! So, at 23 years old and realizing I have a good deal more work to do in discovering who I am, I think keeping an online presence (regardless of how many or few pay attention!) will be helpful. Helpful in synthesizing my interests and passions and questions into my own voice in writing (and other forms of creative expression) and sharing it with whoever is interested. 

When I had the chance to ask Richard a question, I put it this way: "I feel like I have one foot in the first of half life and one foot in the second." I have been blessed enough to have had experiences of grace, of God, where the veil is very thin, when you can see the hidden wholeness in all things and feel the conviction deep in your bones that we are all blessed, sacred, loved and beautiful as we are, that the only thing left to do is to wake up to it and stay awake to it moment by moment. These sorts of experience jerk you clean out of any narrow, black and white, win/lose, us vs. them ways of seeing reality. These are tastes of the second half. But the fact remains that I still have first-half of life work to do, and I'm at peace with that. More than that, I'm excited about the journey that lies ahead. 

I have my uncle Ron Suskind to thank for directly encouraging me to get started with this. Certainly someone who knows a thing or two about finding your voice and expressing it!

What you can expect to see here: thoughts on theology, philosophy, psychology, spirituality, music (both others' and my own), culture, environmental concerns, perhaps some forays into politics here or there, as well as more personal reflections on my life - where I am, have been, am headed, etc. 

Thinkers/texts I'm most interested in right now, and who are likely to influence what is to come here: Joseph Campbell, Richard Rohr, Thich Nhaht Hanh, Thomas Merton, Carl Jung, the book of Genesis (particularly the story of Jacob)