Invictus Schimictus

I remember hearing William Henley’s poem, Invictus, when I was a teenager. God, it sounded so right to me then. Exactly the kind of freedom that our culture and certain bits of a boy’s DNA push toward.

    It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll.
    I am the master of my fate:
    I am the captain of my soul.

But life itself, over time and through its continuous, evolving flow, shows us otherwise.

This sense of courage and responsibility that shouts from the poem is something wonderful to be hungry for. But because we exist all-together and not alone, not one of us--not then, not now, not ever—is master of our fate or captain of our soul. Sheesh, one butterfly flapping its wings in China participates in the causes of weather in Cullowhee!

The poem below was not written as a poem--it’s adapted from one paragraph in Gerald May’s, The Dark Night of the Soul. It’s about freedom too. 

To my ear and mind and heart, Gerald May nails it—what freedom is and isn’t.

    Whatever form it takes,

    the movement 

    of the soul and God

    is always finding

    its way toward freedom. 

    In prayer 
    as in life, 

    it is a movement 

       toward freedom 

       from willfulness, 

     from the compulsion 

       to be in charge 

     and the fear of loss

       of control. 

    It is a movement toward 
     freedom from

       functional atheism:

       the conviction that

         effortful 

         autonomous 

         accomplishment 

    is the only hope!

    A movement toward
     freedom for 

       simple 

       loving 

       presence. 

    And appreciation--
     a willingness

       to respond 

       and participate

       in the divine 
       Spirit 

    in the world.

    A trusting confidence 

     that allows

       radical 
       loving 

       action.