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Something More

Her name is Marian. She is five years old. She has
black hair, dark eyes, and is a vivid little person with an
inborn intelligence that is remarkable. Marian usually puts
away a quite substantial meal. Having cleaned her plate of
meat, starch and vegetables, she begins a chant, "I want some-
thing else." A lilt is in her voice, a light in her eyes.
"I want something more." The delightful images in her mind
are of sweets, a cracker spread with peanut butter, ice cream,
a fig or a date. Compared to potatoes, a cookie is delectable.
Compared to carrots, an ice cream cone is magical. Having ob-
tained and consumed one of these "treats", she usually sings
out again, "I want something more." There is no telling how
long this would go on if her mother did not call a halt.

I think that we grown-ups have desires akin to Marian's.
Ours are not as zestful. Some of the song has gone out of our
voices. But the call, however muted, however confused, persists.
Daily we have our substantial meals - our duties, our work.
This is good and necessary. But it is not all. We feel and know
it is not all, and so we call, "I want something else." Daily
we live with our everyday selves, and with the everyday selves
of others. This must be. There must be a self oriented to the
daily work. But neither is this all, and we know it, and we
call, "We want something more."

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We are requesting the added insight and energy with
which to overcome our difficulties, the greater grace of the
power that heals and makes whole. We are asking for more manhood,
more womanhood, more integration and maturity, and faith and
love, more soul, more purpose and meaning, more truth. I will
never forget a friend once saying, "Now I know what's the matter
with me. I'm hungry for beauty."

We know at least vaguely what Thomas Kelly and some others
have known vividly, namely, that there can be in us as it were
two selves, one oriented to the everyday world, one oriented to
God, existing reciprocally, each contributing to the other. Our
song, or perhaps it is a psalm, is directed toward the Other -
that which is within us yet is still beyond us. Our prayer is
that the Radiant Other come into us more fully, so that our
lives may be raised and deepened and integrated on a higher
level, so that our daily selves and our daily work become more
related to the purpose which God has for us.

There is in us this basic restlessness and yearning,
this hunger that includes the hunger of the flesh but transcends
it, this reaching out, this urge towards human improvement and
completion which is as strong if not stronger than the urge to
animal survival. It is one of the great powers that can move
us onward and upward.

In many instances the immediate desire is for something
that can be pictured in the mind, even if not as graphically as
Marian pictures the other things she calls for. The unmarried
woman wants a husband - in other words, the man-beyond. Many

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a man is yearning for the woman-beyond. The man without a job
wants a job, the man with a job wants a better one. Any writer
worthy of the name hopes to write the book that will more
creatively and completely say what he wants to say than any-
thing written to date. The painter wants the painting-beyond.
What is done is done and finished; he looks forward to the next,
the finer, the more wonderful. Many a parent and many a teacher
is reaching out, some of them desperately, for better under-
standing and more effective methods of dealing with the lusty
calls of adolescents who increasingly demand something more than
the routine fare of home-life, something besides the solid meals
of academic studies.

The scientist presses for the knowledge-beyond, the re-
ligious person for the light and love beyond. All of us yearn
for the peace which is nowhere in sight. And whatever we have
obtained and attained at any given time, there is always the
more abundant, the higher, the deeper, the unpictured, the mys-
terious. Throughout the ages mankind has been spurred by this
drive. And yet -

We see and feel it in the children. Even if we were
deaf and blind we could not miss it in the adolescents. Their
very vibrations express it. But in all too many grown-ups some-
thing has happened to weaken the call, to tame the dynamics.
The power becomes all but chained, curiously enough, as we do
what we call "mature". This occurs right in our homes, in our
schools and churches too, in our offices and factories and on
our farms. The movement with which we began life, which becomes
a bit extreme during the teen age, settles down into a jog-trot.
It happens right before our eyes, though we may not see it, and

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even if we are aware of it, there are not many who know what to do about it.

The loss of this power is a great loss, an ebbing away of the vital surge. Deliberately to deaden it is criminal. The crime is not mitigated in the least if it is done in the name of parenthood, education, law and order, government, religion. On the other hand, this power obviously cannot be allowed unlimited unguided expression. The Marians of the world, calling for something else, would, if they got all they wanted at the time, eat themselves sick. The adolescents might forego all substantial fare, at home and at school, and go in only for the extras, the treats, the thrilling. Many grown-ups would leave their daily rounds and chase rainbows. The divorce rate, already alarming would sky rocket. What to do?

Strike a balance, of course. But how difficult. It is the old and basic problem--to strike a creative balance between control and free expression; between restraint and encouragement; between the work at hand and the bright vision in the mind and heart; between what we are and what we can become; between that which is here and that which is beyond.

I do not come anywhere near striking this balance in relation to myself and my life. Do you? Do the parents, the teachers, the churches, the Friends meetings? Does American democracy? We tend to swing too far one way or the other. Either we want too much of something beyond, or too little. Most of the grown-ups, as suggested, are on the minus side. The older we get the more rapidly the vital surge is likely to disappear. This is why it is important to recall that

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once upon a time we were as Marian, that at her age and after-
wards for a time, we called out with a lilt in our voices
and a light in our eyes, "I want something else. We want
something more."

Symbols of things to feed the soul are not as readily
come by as images of things to feed the belly. The image of
an ice cream cone comes quickly to Marian, and with delight-
ful anticipation. When she is adolescent, what symbols of
what good things to feed her whole person then? When she is
thirty, forty? And for us who are thirty, forty, or over,
what symbols of what good things to nourish and promote the
continuing growth of our whole persons now? What are we look-
ing forward to? What is the something else we want? What
is the something more, which, by our anticipation of it, gives
a lift to our lives and renews our aspirations? Surely we
know, in part, Do we know enough?

If at any time we feel dull and unliving, it is not
because we are old, it is not because we are dying. It is
because there has been a temporary withdrawal of our vital
urge, or because our life-forces are repressed and lock each
other up in hidden conflicts. Actually, it is as the sing
expression says, "There's life in the old boy still." The
same applies to the "old girl." The need is simply to release
this life, though it is not so simple. Symbols are among the
means to be used, symbols that are dynamic, not static. We
need more symbols that have a creative and compelling meaning
for the contemporary psyche, that contain high values and refer
to the higher reality, that would both release and guide
our deeper powers. Older people especially need the releasing

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function of symbols. Younger people especially need their
guiding function.

The adults of today are not suffering from psychic
and religious extravagance. We are suffering from the inhibi-
tion or suffocation of our proper psychic and religious urges.
Again I think of Marian. Again I see her face light up and
hear her song. And again I say that there is plenty of life
locked up in us older ones--and from that life can come what
we are most in need of. As Rufus M. Jones knew so well, new
growth will occur if and as we renew contact with the forces
that produce growth. Encourage the child that still lives
within us under the crust of aging habits and inertia. Affirm
the hope that still survives despite our belief that we have
come to know the narrow limit of what we can expect in this
life. Say yes to the pristine trust and faith--and without
closing the mind to the horrors of man's world. Man is won-
drously made, and his ultimate destiny can be no less wonderful.
One day we may again feel the vital surge, may hear ourselves
singing, may find that we are touched by grace so that again
we are moved by the power of reaching which God does not intend
to cease until we meet our fellow beings in love and are raised
in Him.