The Blessed Fall

At first, everything is what it is. Then, it is what it never was. Finally, it becomes what it really is.

Becoming psychologically integrated into a more complete self often involves tragedy, typically experienced as a calamity in the real world. Just as the depths of love can only be comprehended through the experience of loss, so too must we often discover our truth through the experience of tragedy. This is difficult because tragedy is so destructive and seems to only breed suffering. Yet, what is it about tragedy that makes it so difficult? It appears to me that tragedy rips away the tapestry of heaven on earth and reveals behind it darkness, flames, and smoke—Hell. In an instant, our understanding of our life and the world can be shattered. We experience a deeply unpleasant truth that darkens our souls and obscures the goodness in the things we once cherished. Such a harsh and jarring discovery usually predicates a nihilistic view of reality that sees everything before the tragedy as having been a lie—that it becomes what it never was. And we carry that with us, some longer than others. If we are fortunate, we eventually begin to work through it and find a way to heal. If we are really fortunate, we can give our suffering meaning.

Through such a process, we can say, “Well, it was most unfortunate, and the pain will always be there, but at least I can transform it into something good for the world.” While this is a tall order, it still views the tragedy itself as having revealed a lie and holds no truth—that we made something good out of something terrible, something as only darkness. However, transforming darkness into light is not the same as extracting light from the darkness. In other words, there is a deeply obscure attitude buried underneath our spirit—one that, at its core, still views the tragedy as pure darkness that contains no light. And this attitude is understandable. It is also false, for it denies the notion that if you peer into the darkness long enough, you will see the light. Therefore, it seems as though there is a cost to holding on to this attitude. A failure to discover our truth. If we can make ourselves receptive to the idea that tragedy contains truths about us, then perhaps we open ourselves up to freedom from our own deeply obscure nihilistic attitudes that prevent us from becoming who we are meant to be. And maybe, by some small miracle, we can begin to understand why tragedy has occurred, which is to set in motion a revelation of a truth about you that can only begin through a violent and forceful disruption of our sense of self and the world.

There is a latin phrase, felix culpa, that means happy fall, or blessed fall. The notion of felix culpa is a way of framing the paradoxical nature of tragedy as fortunate consequences of an unfortunate event, which would otherwise never be possible without the occurrence of the unfortunate event to begin with. One such example the story of redemption through the death and resurrection of Christ. I lived so long after the great tragedy of my life, falling into a world of dread, and then overcoming it by giving meaning to that tragedy. It was revealed to me later in life that, perhaps, we can only arrive at the most necessary truths about ourselves through tragedy, for tragedy is not so much what happened, but rather it is about the severing of chains that bind us to a truth that is not ours. Carl Jung once said, “The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.” The truth that isn’t ours forces us into roles that burden us with someone else’s purpose, denying us our own. These ties that bind us to such powerful unseen forces of the unlived lives of our parents are sometimes only broken by extremely violent events. In other words, maybe we are sometimes so inextricably bound to the lie that someone else’s life is our purpose, that we have to be blasted away from it to realize this. This violent psychological process can take years to unfold as a revelation of our path to freedom.

There is a fundamental truth in this notion that indicates a need to reconsider our attitudes towards the tragedies of our stories. You see, we almost always avoid the dirty work of confronting our suffering with an inquisitive spirit that seeks to serve the misfortune of our lives. The calamity of our lives is the harbinger of the cold and terrifying truths about ourselves in the sense that, sometimes, the only way to awaken to our true path is through sorrow and suffering. To have the tapestry of our beautiful world torn away is to be awakened by the truth that contrasts all that is light and predictable. Yet, if we courageously look into the devastation, despite all the indications that it was unnecessary, we might find that it tells a different story. One that provides answers to the mystery of how we were miraculously able to give meaning to our suffering. In other words, maybe we had to endure those trials and tribulations so that we may become a beacon of light for our descendants. And, perhaps, we can find honor in having been the one with whom the curse of generational and cultural trauma comes to a halt. Even if it is only for a little while, our legacy will live on as a story of hope for those who are subjected to the same experience. Meanwhile, the heroic and redemptive quest to extract the smallest, most undetectable spark of light from that cold darkness we long declared as empty will yield salvation just in time for our children to break free from the unlived lives of their parents, and in a much less traumatic way. Therefore, we awaken to the blessed fall—the felix culpa. And that, my friends, is the miracle of redemption.