The Making and Unmaking of a Life

Why umaking a life is a necessary "season" in life

Photo by Silvia Brazzoduro on Unsplash

Substack has become the primary place where you’re going to get me raw and unedited. It is the place where, in and through my writing, that I am attempting to put words down that are rumbling around in and through me. It’s where I feel safe (thank you…thank you!) to share what I’m thinking without the fear of dumb-ass social media trolls who say mean and crazy and hurtful things.

This week’s entry is not the exception. Let me just dive in and tell you what I’ve been thinking about and reflecting on.

What have I made of my life? And this larger, deeper question—what now needs to be unmade? It’s this second question that has surfaced and begged for my attention.

Unmaking a life—after there has been so much “making.” But how? But why?

Is it necessary? Is it normal to think such a thing? And how, then does a person unmake themselves in order to live more fully; become more fully alive before one is more clearly dead?

I don’t want to live a slow death. The Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda wrote so poignantly:

You start dying slowly :

If you avoid to feel passion

And their turbulent emotions;

Those which make your eyes glisten

And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly :

If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain

If you do not go after a dream

If you do not allow yourself

At least once in your lifetime

To run away from sensible advice

Don't let yourself die slowly

Do not forget to be happy!

So, I’m landing on what in my life needs to be unmade? Why has “making” been such a dominate term for me?

Many friends and literary companions have helped me find these words I am writing today. David Whyte, Mary Oliver, Dallas Willard, Brian McLaren, Sarah Bessey and more have helped reshape my understanding and sense of unmaking my life.  Unmaking. That’s the term I want to explore here. Unmaking best describes what has been happening to me. I like this word—unmake—because in my making of my life, I am now seeing that there is this needed and necessary season to be unmade. 

I feel the need here, to confess my community of mentors and voices who have spoken so deeply into me. I could not have found this place apart from guides who spoke of such a place. (I detail these in the footnotes to my poem below). There are many more than these, because ordinary lives have been the sharpest tools to undo me. I am but one voice saying these things—offering my insights and wisdom here.  I felt the need probably, because I want to put words to this unmaking that I am experiencing.

We must be unmade because, it is true that as we were formed in our souls, we can be re-formed and trans-formed and con-formed to a better version of ourselves. To be formed does not mean that we are formed once and for all. Not at all! Just as we are formed, we are made and just as we are made, we can be unmade.

It was Gregory of Nyssa who wrote these words in the 4th century, “Sin is the refusal to grow.” It is a simple sentence but a profound truth that I agree with more now, than at any other time in my life. I feel myself growing. My unmaking is form of growth, not stagnation.

 Why? Because unless a person is unmade, we will remain stuck; we will remain the same. We will not change. We will remain as we are—as we have made ourselves—or as we have been manufactured by our cultures, churches and nations.

In order to find a life worthy to be lived. I am alive, not to live a slow death; not to be the living dead but to breathe into my lungs a purity that inflates rather than deflates; that awakens rather than numbs and that helps me see, as if for the very first time.

Wearing tight snake skins, I have had to rub against the hard rocks and obstacles I encountered along the way, to shed these many dead skins that no longer fit me. I have shed people, groups, beliefs and left brain dominated thinking. I have had to. I would have died otherwise. It all was necessary, perhaps, to help me be born again many, many times.

Having studied the formation of faith and many critical stages and phases, a more beautiful metaphor of seasons is helping me make sense of the journey now.

I have lived through many winters.

I have lived through many springs.

I have lived through many summers and falls.

Haven’t we all? Unless you happen to live in a one season climate zone, then seasons offers a compelling way to understand our lives and the many events of life that we move through and endure to find a new season ahead on the horizon.

Isn’t this what we all are doing. Surviving and thriving, moving and stalling; planting and harvesting in our work, love and life? Embracing “seasons” as the primary metaphor of life helps unmake me and undo me. AFter all, in “Wisdom Literature” of our Scriptures, we find a lonely book called, Ecclesiastes and in this wonderful, yet sobeing book is Chapter 3—the chapter where the writer attempts to say what I am trying to say here: “In everything there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die… and as you read this poem, you see the sheer wisdom of it.

There is a time to make. There is a time to unmake.

The dead ends, deaths, failures and clarity of our many winters; the greening and hopes of our new beginnings and springs; the abundance and joy of our summer adventures; the harvest and reaping of our long toils in autumn—seasons and embracing seasons helps unmake me and helps inform me of a kinder way of living through so much change and transformation.

And now, these eternal cycles offer the best light I can now see with to peer both backward, forward and into and through this present time. All of these seasons are in me and in you.

So, I’m working on a poem… and I’ve decided to go ahead and share it here with you—even though it’s not finished…not yet. Perhaps, I will need a few more seasons to shed more light on this. But at least for now, you can see my —what is the right word?—progress? No, not progress, as that word smells of manufacturing. But what? You can see my reflection in this present season of my life—after a life of so much making and now sensing this unmaking happening in me.

If you’ve been with me on Substack then you know what’s coming. My poem is for those who choose to support me in these efforts by becoming a “Paid Subscriber.” These folks, are like the patrons who supported the artists like Michangelo, D’Vinci and others to be able to “do” their work. It’s a specific and tangible way of showing support—of offering an encouragement to keep on keeping on in this exercise and grand experiment of writing poems—and in saying more in fewer words. I’m so, deeply grateful. If you’re not at a place where you can become a Paid Subscriber, then just write me and email at info@pottersinn.com and say you want to have access to the poems, and I will give that to you—no questions asked. Thanks for understanding.

Now, here’s my poem on “Making and Unmaking a Life.” AFter the poem, I’ve added a few necessary footnotes which help give you clues as to who are the predominate voices that have both made and unmade me and I tip by hat to them in this poem.