My experience with writing, albeit limited, has shown me that I love it the most when I am "pregnant" with what feels like some very ripe thought that is just begging to be articulated. The actual composing is almost effortless....the words just fly from the keys and organize themselves into coherent thought. Today is not one of those days. Today brings me a couple of wisps and a vagueness that challenges me to try and express to myself what is lurking in the mental shadows.
I have described myself in part as a recovering hedonist. Yet, it's not just seeking pleasure as an end in itself for me. It is more of a strong pull/desire for transcendence....to go beyond the mere limits of the material world. To discover and experience what is just beyond the curtain, to lose myself in the larger story that has been being told since the beginning of time. To go beyond my pay grade. To lose my "I-ness" in the community of the Kingdom. Mind altering drugs, the first twenty minutes of whisky, first blush of love, birth of a child, a wild thunderstorm can all produce the briefest glimpse of what a loosening of the normal bindings of life can feel like. It is heady stuff. But it disappears so quickly. It leaves me just wanting, wanting more....
This may simply sound like a whining boomer who just wants his Maypo. Perhaps. But now that I have been graced with the benefit of retirement and the gift of time, I find myself increasingly being drawn to a contemplative mindset. The desire for general transcendence has become more specific and is more clearly described by a yearning for intimacy with the Creator of the universe, for union with Christ, the merging of my branch into the Vine. To lose my constant use of myself as a universal reference point for all that I do and think. To lose my knee-jerk/default strategy of comparing, judging, keeping score etc., ad nauseum, etc. To surrender, to allow myself to be absorbed into the desires and plans I was created to pursue. To regularly, more effortlessly hear the still small voice. To say yes more quickly. To obviate the need for any bit or bridle. To be merged into the community of the Trinitarian dance that has been from the beginning to today.
Smitten is the best word to describe the level of my gratitude for being an eternal son of the Lion of Judah. He has given me tangible experiences of being called up and into something bigger than myself. A seven year opportunity to be part of a band of brothers that fought and prayed together through long weekends in a very "thin place". Of being given a second chance in a blended family after I had brought travesty down upon my domain. Twenty years of learning to navigate the invisible in a career consisting of a net-less tightrope and an "eat what you kill" pay plan. Today, I can humbly testify to the truth that he is not tame but he is good.
Last Saturday, I went for a short walk to see how my hamstring healing was coming along. Trying to start back up slow so went only two miles which ended with some quiet time in the woods. The silent, people-less woods, ready-made for an apprentice contemplative. I found myself intently listening as I asked if Abba may have anything to say to me. A few minutes went by. I looked through an opening in the trees and caught the beautiful arching flight of four, bright white, long-necked geese flying against the backdrop of a maya blue sky. Though four in number, they flew as a single unit in perfect cadence and symmetry. What Lord? Is this for me? .....Yes, one is called up into the three and they fly as one. 1 + 3 = 1. Kingdom math. This is my transcendence for you Santiago.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Saturday, February 8, 2020
93 year old Pop Quiz
Insight is a wonderful thing. I get some every so often and it blesses me to my core because I know from where it comes. It was Thursday and I ventured out to a most unpleasant venue....a mall. Why? Because it housed a JC Penney's and a Macy's, both of which carry a wide selection of Levis jeans. I was on the hunt for some jeans like I used to buy with a classic cut and no "extra room in the seat or thigh". Those parts of me don't need extra room....it's above the belt where the issues lie.
But I digress. The JCP clerk told me to head downstairs but to take the elevator as the down escalator was under repair. Off I went, pushed the down button and waited....waited for what seemed to be an extra long time. Finally the door slowly opened and out tottered an old man, bent over, with a quad-cane in his right hand and a package in his left. I passed by him as I entered the elevator and as I passed him he looked at me and, as he thrust the package toward me, said "Here, carry this for me to the front door". Wow, didn't see this coming.....
So what transpired in my mind took about 3-5 seconds. It started ugly. I could hear "Say what? Who do you think I am, a personal assistant? But then Kingdom sanity broke in and I was aware of a "Wait a minute! I've seen this before.....my answer is to simply say OK and accommodate him. I had failed a similar Pop Quiz at the mission some months before and was shown a painful side of my false self. Here was another go at it. I muttered out a somewhat reluctant OK (it was a weak assent, not a glorious be-ready-in-all-circumstances,victorious "Absolutely!").
While we walked to the "front door", I was able to re-order my selfish emotions, get them shut up and seated and walk as a servant, not as a man who is in the middle of his own circle of life. He said he was 93 and it was hard to get around but he could still get out some and he had gotten some fantastic bargains and it was all possible because he had never been a drinking man. Phew, all in one breath! We turned a corner and there was a younger woman with the look of someone looking for someone. I presume it was his daughter. She looked at me with a somewhat puzzled look. I gave her the package and simply said "He asked me to carry this for him." No thank you's, no graceful good-byes. Simply an abrupt conclusion to what I call a spiritual Pop Quiz.
My walk these days has me squarely in an arena that sounds like this: I am a branch in desperate need to be fused with the Vine of life. I have finally accepted the fact that...."apart from me you can do nothing." (Seven decades to accept this fact is hardly a world record!) As a branch, my choice isn't an optional decision. Not being able to do anything is the starkest of statements as to what my chances are away from the Vine.
One of the books I find myself soaking in is Frank Laubach's Letters by a Modern Mystic. The heart of what he shares in this book connects with my deepest pools. In today's reading he said if asked his chief difficulty in serving the people group he was called to, his answer is: " No chief difficulty really except to keep ready spiritually." (Italics mine) And, as declared in the paragraph above, my being ready will never be accomplished through greater personal effort....but only by a dynamic abiding in the Vine who came to rescue me and restore me into who I am meant to be...to give me the wherewithal to "be ready spiritually".
Abiding is a particularly winsome type of activity. It has much more to do with not doing, certainly not striving. A kind of none active activity I mostly appreciate the Pop Quizzes. While having nothing to do with getting an A or advancing to the next grade, they serve as a potent reminder and provide some feedback on the quality of my abiding. Santiago, although I understand it's not about getting grades, nevertheless, I personally see you getting a C- on the quiz containing a 93 year old Jesus. While there are miles to go, you didn't get an F this time! Rejoice! Abide!
But I digress. The JCP clerk told me to head downstairs but to take the elevator as the down escalator was under repair. Off I went, pushed the down button and waited....waited for what seemed to be an extra long time. Finally the door slowly opened and out tottered an old man, bent over, with a quad-cane in his right hand and a package in his left. I passed by him as I entered the elevator and as I passed him he looked at me and, as he thrust the package toward me, said "Here, carry this for me to the front door". Wow, didn't see this coming.....
So what transpired in my mind took about 3-5 seconds. It started ugly. I could hear "Say what? Who do you think I am, a personal assistant? But then Kingdom sanity broke in and I was aware of a "Wait a minute! I've seen this before.....my answer is to simply say OK and accommodate him. I had failed a similar Pop Quiz at the mission some months before and was shown a painful side of my false self. Here was another go at it. I muttered out a somewhat reluctant OK (it was a weak assent, not a glorious be-ready-in-all-circumstances,victorious "Absolutely!").
While we walked to the "front door", I was able to re-order my selfish emotions, get them shut up and seated and walk as a servant, not as a man who is in the middle of his own circle of life. He said he was 93 and it was hard to get around but he could still get out some and he had gotten some fantastic bargains and it was all possible because he had never been a drinking man. Phew, all in one breath! We turned a corner and there was a younger woman with the look of someone looking for someone. I presume it was his daughter. She looked at me with a somewhat puzzled look. I gave her the package and simply said "He asked me to carry this for him." No thank you's, no graceful good-byes. Simply an abrupt conclusion to what I call a spiritual Pop Quiz.
My walk these days has me squarely in an arena that sounds like this: I am a branch in desperate need to be fused with the Vine of life. I have finally accepted the fact that...."apart from me you can do nothing." (Seven decades to accept this fact is hardly a world record!) As a branch, my choice isn't an optional decision. Not being able to do anything is the starkest of statements as to what my chances are away from the Vine.
One of the books I find myself soaking in is Frank Laubach's Letters by a Modern Mystic. The heart of what he shares in this book connects with my deepest pools. In today's reading he said if asked his chief difficulty in serving the people group he was called to, his answer is: " No chief difficulty really except to keep ready spiritually." (Italics mine) And, as declared in the paragraph above, my being ready will never be accomplished through greater personal effort....but only by a dynamic abiding in the Vine who came to rescue me and restore me into who I am meant to be...to give me the wherewithal to "be ready spiritually".
Abiding is a particularly winsome type of activity. It has much more to do with not doing, certainly not striving. A kind of none active activity I mostly appreciate the Pop Quizzes. While having nothing to do with getting an A or advancing to the next grade, they serve as a potent reminder and provide some feedback on the quality of my abiding. Santiago, although I understand it's not about getting grades, nevertheless, I personally see you getting a C- on the quiz containing a 93 year old Jesus. While there are miles to go, you didn't get an F this time! Rejoice! Abide!
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