Spiritual Memoir

Poet Muriel Rukeyser said, “The world is made up of stories, not atoms.” Catherine Ann Jones added, “Without story, we do not exist. The power of story is how we discover who we are.” Finally, James Carroll observed, “The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative is holy…. We tell stories because we can't help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us.”

What is the story of your life? It is an important question because, to paraphrase Søren Kierkegaard, we live our lives forward, but can only understand them backward. There are two spiritual practices that allow us to write about, reflect on, and ultimately own our own life in a profound way. One involves journal writing, the other is spiritual memoir.

Henry David Thoreau began journaling on October 22, 1837 at the suggestion of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau’s first entry recounted the conversation with Emerson: “‘What are you doing now?’ he asked. ‘Do you keep a journal?’ So I make my first entry today.” Thoreau’s journaling continued for 25-years comprising more than 7,000 manuscript pages and two million words. It started as a record of experiences, observations, and ideas, became a writer’s notebook involving introspection and composition, and evolved into the foundational work of his life. His journal was the source of much of his published writing. Thoreau wrote faithfully, often 15 pages a day, and thus owned his life in a way that few people do. We need not be as prolific as Thoreau to reflect profoundly on our life. While a diary is a description of one’s experiences, a journal is also a reflection on those experiences in an attempt to make meaning of experience.

Philip Zaleski defines spiritual writing as “poetry or prose that deals with the bedrock of human existence—why we are here, where we are going and how we can comport ourselves with dignity along the way.” Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew outlines three characteristics of spiritual memoir. 1.) “the writer of spiritual memoir works to uncover, probe, and honor what is sacred within his or her own life story; …2.) writing itself becomes a means for spiritual growth. … and 3.) The writer works to tell his or her story in such a way that the experience of the sacred is made available….”

Our spiritual memoir can begin with the creation of a timeline that attempts to uncover the depth of our life and the formative experiences that have shaped us. These include the homes we lived in, the people who influenced us, the places we went that were filled with meaning, peak experiences that continue to resonate, as well as the crises encountered and the losses that remain healed or unhealed. It also includes the “ah-hahs”—those precious glimpses of wisdom. As these dimensions of the timeline of our life are fleshed out, themes that characterize different phases of our lives begin to emerge. And for each theme there is at least one story, a signature if you will, that illustrates the theme. Recollecting these stories and sharing them deepens our understanding of our own life. And with each retelling, there can be small shifts in understanding simply because our perspective is enlarged.

It is impossible to begin our spiritual memoir at the beginning of our own life because, in truth, we were born into the middle of a story that was already in progress, one greatly influenced by our parents to be sure, but also by previous generations and historical circumstance.

What is your story? If you don't tell it, who can?