“Unbinding Our Buried Selves” A Reflection from Dean Melinda Hall
Lately, I am aware of a tightness bound inside me. The wintery gray, the drudge of the pandemic, have left me tense, less spontaneous, more wary. As the light grows each day and the promise of spring dawns – and the hope brought by vaccines – this tightness is making itself known, wanting to unfold
Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet, writes in one of his poems: “I want to unfold./ Let no place in me hold itself closed/ for where I am closed, I am false.” (translation by Barrows and Macy). Not just winter or pandemics cause us to grow closed: Experiences lead us to fold up parts of ourselves, hiding them from one another and ourselves. This begins in childhood, when we are teased by a classmate, feel unaccepted by a parent or realize our self-expression is not socially normative. In response, we cultivate an image, hide bits of ourselves and accommodate the expectations placed on us. The lost truths get buried, bound within, leaving us, as Rilke puts it, false.
Rilke’s poem continues with “I want to stay clear in your sight,” tapping into the heart of the spiritual quest: to know the truth of oneself in God, to unfold all the bound places, finding freedom and clarity. In the Christian scripture, Jesus says that the greatest command is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. We can only love ourselves when we know ourselves and only then are we free to love others. And, as Rilke rightly intuits, unbinding our buried selves is hard work, best done in relationship with the one who loves all the bound bits of ourselves and longs for us to find our truth. Unfolding in God sets us free, eliminating the false and releasing the joy of being true.
