Several years ago I dreamed that I was living in this particular house. It was the house of my childhood, the house in which I lived for sixteen years. In this dream, my wife and I and our four children were inside the house enjoying one another's company. Suddenly, the house began to shake. The walls began to cave in; the ceiling started to fall. In panic, I shouted, "Everyone, get out quickly!" I ran out the front door as fast as I could. The ground beneath my feet was shaking violently. I turned to look behind me, and as I did, I saw the house collapse into a pile of rubble. Everyone inside was killed; eveything in it was destroyed. I was shaken to the very depths of my being. And then, I looked up at the night sky and saw millions of crystal stars looking down upon me. Suddenly, I felt at one with all that my eyes could see. In that instant, I experienced, simultaneously, bottomless grief and infinite joy. I then knew that thse were but opposite sides of the same coin. I sensed the death of my old life and the birth of a new one. This was the beginning of my transition.
Three years later my twenty-five-year marriage had come to an end. My work as a minister of a Unity church was over. My life was in chaos. I was nearly bankrupt. My sense of identity was demolished. The pain and confusion felt overwhelming. I stood, in shock, looking at the rubble that was once my life. At age forty-five, I felt as if my life was over.
It was. The new life that has emerged is no the same as the old one. Out of the ashes of the former life, a new birth has taken place. Indeed, God was in charge--yet in the midst of my darkness, I could not see that. I had no maps, no guidelines, no history upon which I could draw in order to understand my experience.
I have since encountered many other persons struggling with the pain and uncertainty of transition. I saw that they, like myself, were totally unprepared for the impact that change would have on their lives. I realized that our culture--in spite of the enormous changes that have occurred since the mid-sixties--offers us little in the way of halp in coping with change. The world of my youth was a world where change was simply not acknowledged. And if the change was so great that it must be acknowledged, then it was treated as a tragedy from which we must recover as quickly as possible so that we could return our lives to "normal." Such was the only model for change that I knew.
Even though the world of today bears little resemblance to the world of my youth, I see and hear individuals responding to change much in the same manner that I was taught: Ignore the past and "get on" with life! The problem with this approach is that it doesn't work! Yet we seem to keep trying--perhaps because we don't know any other way. Perhaps it's time to find another way!
This book has two objectives. One is to offer an alternative model for navigating one's way through life's transitions--to provide somewhat of a "map" for the journey. A second, and perhaps the more important objective, is to help the reader discover that a major life transition is an opportunity for transformation--a transformation into an entirely new life. A transition is an opportunity for spiritual rebirth if we see clearly and respond wisely. I hope that this book will serve as a guide to that end.
This book is divided into three major sections. The first discusses the general nature of change and the dynamics of the transition process. The second section looks at the individual components of the transition process and parallels each with the biblical story of the Exodus, the journey of the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt into the Promised Land of Canaan. The third section looks at transition from a broader philosophical perspective and addresses questions such as: What's it all about? Where is this taking us? Does it ever end?
