Success? Failure!

Just after our July newsletter went out, we heard from the latest bank.  They turned us down for a mortgage loan.  We're too new, too small to take a chance on.  They suggested another place that works with churches, but we aren't really a church.  One of our great gifts - the fact that we are outside easy boxes - is a liability when dealing with the financial establishment.

At first I was really sad and discouraged.  Not discouraged about our community or my vocation or about whether God is with us, but discouraged on that human level, the ego level.  I want things to be moving upward and outward!  I want to show you all that we are growing and on to something!  Blah blah blah.  My poor ego was crying.

Then we talked with one of our mentors who reminded us of Jung's great maxim: success for the ego is failure for the Self; failure for the ego is success for the Self.  Sounds sort of like Jesus, who humbled himself to show us the glorious possibilities of humanity.  And it's true: I have grown from occasional successes, I've come to feel more capable or secure and able to be more generous, but my greatest growth has come from the times I've "failed."  When I hit the wall, hit bottom, hit the dead end, that's when compassion and wisdom and trust and faithfulness can grow.  My ego always thinks it's a bad thing, but on a deeper level I know it's an opening.

So we are back to looking for rentals.  We could try to force this, but it doesn't feel right.  We have never been really certain we should be owners anyway.  I am certain that forced solutions are never as creative or fruitful as the ones that come when I let go.

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration.  Jesus and his companions had a glimpse of glory, but it came with the message of crucifixion and dwelling in the depths.  It was not an easy message to hear, I'm sure, and not an easy message to share.  "You must lose your life to save it."  "I have to go die in order to rise again."  Success for the ego is failure for the Self.

So today I'm sort of grateful we got turned down.  If we had been approved we'd be off searching for something that may not belong to us.  Instead I got the gift of coming back, of knowing that all is well whatever is going on on the surface level.  And I get the gift of being open to greater glory than I can imagine or engineer.  I think I got the better deal.

Blessings on all your endeavors.  May they open you to God in new and unexpected ways!