Die Hausmann (The Houseman)

Honestly, the first time I was called, it rubbed me the wrong way.  Maybe it was because of the accent “HA-ous-Mah-n.”  Perhaps it was because it was something that I never identified myself with before.  I mean to answer a question posed by strangers, “Was tun Sie hier in der Schweiz zu tun?” (What do you do here in Switzerland?) “Ich bin eine Hausmann” (I am a Houseman) is awkward.

On the one hand, it sounds way too formal for washing floors and toilets. On the other hand, it sounds like I should be getting paid for this.  And that’s the thing.  There lies the rub.  Being a Hausmann has been a blessing on so many levels because it has allowed me to continue to wrestle with myself—more specifically, the “first half” of life self.

“One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”

-Carl Yung

Having gone through the mid-life shift, some like to call it a crisis; I like to call it “the beautiful destruction” a few years ago, it might be fun to talk with the first half of life Brett (the big-shot athlete dude) as a means to help better prepare him for the beautiful role he will experience today as Hausmann, for there isn’t much first-half of life stuff here for him.

FHL (First Half of Life) Brett: If you aren’t living for a goal, you aren’t living…how can you be so content?

Hausmann Brett: Goals in and of themselves are alright.  For instance, I have many goals.  I want to learn the German language a little bit better.  I want to write a couple of books in the next few years.  And I would love to travel and see the world.  Yet, achieving these goals is not the big deal.  These are simply things that I think I would like to do.  Sometimes, we believe we are virtuous when we do things to help build up our superior selves with achievements and goals.  When, in actuality, righteous living is done in the shadows.  It is done in the quiet day-to-day lives of those who sacrifice to serve others.  This is a big deal.  It seems to me there is a verse that pertains to something like this: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”

FHL Brett: I hear and read about that, and I guess I understand it, but how do I accomplish this?

Hausmann Brett: There is that word again, accomplish!!  There isn’t much to accomplish here.  It is more about participating in something bigger than constructing and doing it yourself.  It is more about being ok with being rather than trying to manufacture yourself as something.  Serving others is something you can do right now, even with all of your self-serving motives.  I say, do it!  But continue to do it when people stop noticing.  Continue to do it when people get offended.  Continue to do it when you don’t want to.  And the more you do it, the more your motives die.  This is when you can be present with the person before you.  This is living.

FHL Brett: You keep saying I shouldn’t strive for or do something. Isn’t life about having “no regrets”?

Hausmann Brett: Sure, have no regrets.  Try that on for size.  How are you doing?  I once heard that if you want to be perfect, learn to see, accept, be with, and laugh at the imperfections all around us.  Oh, and start with yourself!!!  In many ways, those of us in the West are hurting ourselves by being spiritually idle.  In other words, we aren’t interested in living to love; instead, we live to try to avoid dying.  Thus, no regrets mean something completely different.  There is a truth that you can’t manufacture on your own.  There is a life that is born that can only come from dying.  This is the rhythm of joy.  The problems will come when you resist the things that need to die.  How did you feel when your baseball career came to a close?  Are you still trying?  What are you so afraid of?  Why do you want to stay put?  The ego will always resist failure and dying…thus, you must learn to see from different lenses.  You must have the courage to be weak.  To be vulnerable.  You must be comfortable with the paradox of the cross and, thus, your cross.  Everything you know to be true is upside down.  Then, you will begin to be able to see clearly.  For there is only one regret in life.

 “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”

-Leon Bloy

FHL Brett: But I believe in God, and I feel like God wants me to have Him in my life and do what makes me happy.

Hausmann Brett: I am glad your faith is present and vital to you.  But here is a little secret.  God does not need you.  He can be Himself and do what He does without you.  There will come a time when you realize how much you try to fit God into what makes you happy.  In other words, you probably think that God must be pleased with your actions as long as you are happy.  Therefore, if you are asked to do something that you aren’t satisfied with, then God isn’t pleased with this either, and thus this must not be your “calling.”  What has worked in the past probably won’t work anymore in the future.  This doesn’t mean it wasn’t an essential step in your relationship with God, just a first one.  Genuine faith comes when you decide that the relationship is the big deal.  Not the happiness or the doing.  It is about participating in the divine life that God invites us to join.  When you realize this, the doors of joy will fling open, and your life will begin to be filled with things you can’t manufacture alone.  It is less about making choices and more about allowing yourself to be led.  It’s not about you…what freedom there is in this!!!

Hausmann Brett: I will leave you with this last piece of advice.  The only person that will stop you from experiencing what you truly desire is yourself.  You have the power to either enter into the second half of your life or not.  Although you can’t manufacture it yourself, the time will come when you must respond, usually through a failure of some sort.  Take courage, for it will test you to your core.  Have patience because it takes time to sort through the ego structures and messes we create during life’s first half.  Please don’t do it alone.  Surround yourself with those who have walked their roads of painful glory, for they will challenge and comfort you through the process.  Finally, come to grips with your painful past.  We all have them.  Wounds and pain are part of the journey.  Stop resisting them and blaming others, and enter, for you will discover your deepest desires here.  Desires that will lead you to what you have wanted all along.

Someday please read Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, you will know the time when it comes. For there is a poem in the back of the book by Thomas Merton.  One day you will understand the words of this poem more fully and you will come to see more clearly why being a Hausmann is in fact beautiful.

When in the Soul of the Serene Disciple

When in the soul of the serene disciple
With no more Fathers to imitate
Poverty is a success,
It is a small thing to say the roof is gone:
He has not even a house.

Stars, as well as friends,
Are angry with the noble ruin.
Saints depart in several directions.

Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.

Here you will find
Neither a proverb nor a memorandum.
There are no ways,
No methods to admire
Where poverty is no achievement.
His God lives in his emptiness like an affliction.

What choice remains?
Well, to be ordinary is not a choice:
It is the usual freedom
Of men without visions.

-Thomas Merton