Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Are you living in Zerrissenheit?

I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.... This is an end toward which we should strive - to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities.  Solitude alone is not the answer to this; it is only a step toward it, a mechanical aid.... The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of activities.  In fact, the problem is how to feed the soul.
For it is the spirit of woman that is going dry, not the mechanics that are wanting... With our garnered free time, we are more apt to drain our creative springs than to refill them.  With our pitchers, we attempt sometimes to water a field, not a garden.
Not knowing how to feed the spirit, we try to muffle its demands and distractions.  Instead of stilling the center, the axis of the wheel, we add more centrifugal activities to our lives- which tend to throw us off balance. 
[The] answer is not in the frequent pursuit of centrifugal activities which only lead in the end to fragmentation.  Woman's life today is tending more and more toward the state [described] so well in the German word "Zerrissenheit-torn-to-pieces-hood."  She cannot live perpetually in "Zerrissenheit."  She will be shattered into a thousand pieces.  On the contrary, she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh  Gift from the Sea

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I love this book. Thank you for this reminder.