222: Recovering Masculine Initiation with Jay Heck (Part 2)

“If you only think about Jesus, ‘believe’ Jesus and believe things about Jesus not much new is going to happen. It is the risk of ‘acting’ like Jesus that reconfigures your soul. We are converted by new circumstances much more than by new ideas. We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of being… Reality is the greatest ally of God.”

—Richard Rohr, From Wild Man to Wise Man

How might a deeper understanding of the sacred ascent of the first half of life and the sacred descent of the second half of life better help us locate ourselves wherever we find ourselves in our initiation? Why is it of such profound importance to understand the soul’s necessary maturing from hero to sage and from role to soul? Why does the maturing from doing and getting to being and becoming have everything to do with how we live today?

So much of our world is organized around the question, What do you do?

We learn early to measure a life by accomplishment, influence, productivity, and what we can build. But the deeper questions of initiation invite us somewhere else: Who am I? Who is God? What is the story in which I find myself? And who am I becoming?

In the final episode of this series with Jay Heck, founder of Being Sons,, we explore what it might mean to carry those questions in deeper ways that nourish  the maturing of the second half of life.

And what if the invitation of the second half of life isn't to leverage everything we've gained for greater influence, but to de-center? To become more obscure. To loosen our need to be needed. To give our strength in service of the next generation and the generation behind them.

Perhaps the great opportunity before us is not simply to finish well, but to become the sage  we ourselves have longed for. To become more attuned to our propensity to form more sophisticated expressions of ego and conveniently avoid the many deaths which are intended to seed our ongoing resurrection.

Wherever you find yourself on the journey, I hope this conversation gives you language for your own becoming and awakens fresh curiosity about the sacred work God has entrusted to you in this particular season.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie