Transcript of the Video Above

Daily reflections for Lenten Easter, written by Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI.

James Hillman, who is perhaps America’s most fertile thinker, suggests that it is our inferiorities that build up our souls. His view is that it is not our strengths that give us depth and character, but our weaknesses.
More of us are rendered superficial by our successes than by our failures. More of us are torn apart by our strengths than by our weaknesses.

Reflecting on this, I recall a time some years back when I was a young student studying psychology.
One evening I attended a lecture by the renowned Polish psychologist Casimir Dabrowski on a concept he called positive disintegration. His theory was that we grow by first falling apart.

At one point I raised this objection. Can’t we also grow by being built up by our successes, by taking in positive affirmation and letting it purify us of our selfishness?

His answer supports Hillman. He said, theoretically, yes, we can grow through our successes just as easily as we can through our failures.

But I can say, through more than 40 years of psychiatric practice, I have rarely seen it. Almost always, deep growth takes place through the opposite our death, our losses, our dark nights of the soul.

Now, it’s not that these are in and of themselves good. It is just that when we listen to them, we grow deep. They build up our souls.

Inferiorities and failures are not things to be buried as private and past shames. They are to be listened to. They are entries into the depth of our souls.