GOD’s Message yet again:
“Go stand at the crossroads and look around.
Ask for directions to the old road,
The tried-and-true road. Then take it.
Discover the right route for your souls.
But they said, ‘Nothing doing.
We aren’t going that way.’”
(Jeremiah 6:16, The Message)
At times, I stand at a crossroads and look around for direction on the path to take onward . . . and hear nothing, see nothing.
At other times, I stand at the crossroads and look around for wisdom . . . and what I hear or see or sense seems too difficult, too unreasonable. I’m not yet ready to go in the way I’m being led.
And at other times, I stand at the crossroads, noticing the several ways that branch out from that intersection, and I find myself ready to hear and follow the wisdom that I sense in that moment. Very often for me, that wisdom comes in the form of a person, a voice, another life who shows up at just the moment I’m needing wisdom at the crossroads.
Sometimes the voice that shows up is someone speaking across the ages . . . the voice of someone in days past who has lived wisely and courageously shared their wisdom . . . in order to help guide other travelers . . . a poet like Rilke or an otherwise unsuspect woman who lived underneath the notice of her times like Mother Julian.
I am aware of how indebted I am to these other voices, these other lives. I stand on the shoulders of so many others, as do you. There is no such thing as a “self-made man” or a “self-made woman.” All of us are products of those who have guided us when we were seeking direction at the crossroads, open to wisdom that has guided others before us in ways that are healing and life-giving, in ways that enable us to live with fullness of soul.
Yesterday was the Feast of All Saints and today is the Feast of All Souls. These days on the calendar give opportunity to pause and remember those who have gone before us, those who have shared their wisdom when we were at crossroads, lost and searching. I have given more time than usual this year to reflecting on the importance of these two days because of three deaths last week of persons who shared their wisdom with me in different ways, yet all when I was at various crossroads.
Eugene Peterson died last week. In a story I’ve told often, I first encountered Peterson through a friend who sent me a copy of Working the Angles in the early 1990’s. I had recently completed four years of rigorous doctoral work that had occupied every spare moment that didn’t include family or church responsibilities. I was in a dry spot, facing my own internal emptiness. I didn’t know I was standing at a crossroads looking for wisdom, but in hindsight I very clear was doing just that. As I read Peterson’s words in Working the Angles, I knew he was talking right to my heart and soul. The moment was pivotal and the course I took in reading his words had huge repercussions on everything that has unfolded in my life in the 25 years since.
Peterson gave me a language for my soul’s yearning, and some basic practices that began to feed my soul. I quickly bought as many of his books as I could find. In the summer of 1995 I took a sabbatical for study and refreshment. I took several weeks to study under Peterson at Regent College in Vancouver. The time was transforming, feasting on Peterson’s talks in the mornings, then spending the rest of the long British Columbia days exploring mountains, hiking in forests, discovering waterfalls, dipping my feet into glacial lakes. I ended up going back to Vancouver for his classes four or five times.
In recent years, I have found myself pushing back more and more on some of his assumptions, but isn’t that the way it is with our mentors? He and I grew in different ways, ways unique to each of us. Even so, I have never stopped being grateful for how he gave me an early language for what was happening in my soul.
Kyrie eleison.
Fr Thomas Keating died last week. I don’t remember my first encounter with Fr Keating. I practiced Centering Prayer – thanks to another saint, Sr Adeline O’Donoghue – before I knew who Keating was. Sr Adeline probably introduced me to him, as well, in the mid-1990’s. At any rate, the first book by Keating I read was not his introduction to Centering Prayer, Open Mind, Open Heart, but his book which explained the interior workings of contemplative prayer, Invitation to Love. Keating had a deep, experiential grasp of contemplative prayer and how it operates in a person’s soul. He was smart and knew a lot of psychology, but most of what he shared was borne of personal experience. He did not simply repeat someone else’s theory.
I ended up meeting Keating a handful of times and hearing him speak in person. He was a large man, commanding a room in his white monk’s habit, but gentle and funny. And in either conversation or teaching, his words always seemed to arise from a deep place within him. There was weight in his speech, gravitas, something that seemed to come from a deep interior well. He knew who he was and was comfortable with who he was, so he was not demonstrative or persuasive or motivational. He did not need to be someone other than the person he was. My time with him helped shape my own notion of what it means to be wise . . . that wisdom comes from spiritual reflection and integrating life experiences, from considering life deeply.
I grieve that the world will be without Fr Keating’s physical presence. But I celebrate that wisely, Keating and others years ago formed Contemplative Outreach as a structure that would carry on the work of contemplative prayer and serve as a vehicle for transformation through this unassuming prayer practice.
Christe eleison.
Robert Winn died last week. In my home church in Tulsa, I served on the staff for four years during college and for a year after college before leaving for seminary . . . and I served alongside Robert. I was fairly new to the “Christian-thing” and brand new to the “church staff thing.” Robert was the older, wiser presence – in my late teens, I thought he was an old man . . . turns out Robert was only 14 years older than I am, so he was in his early 30’s . . . still, he was an “old man” to me as a teenager.
Robert was the one person on that staff I could go to for advice and wisdom, the person whose door was always open to me. Any other staff person, I would have needed an appointment to see. I could seek him out with questions about how to do things, how to approach certain aspects of ministry. He was funny, relaxed, and the afternoons we spent in ping-pong battles in the church’s game room produced some epic matches. He was a friend and an early mentor. For many years, I carried with me Robert’s notions about what it means to serve well on a church staff. As much as anyone, especially early in ministry, he taught me about survival in a local church.
Kyrie eleison.
Who have been your “crossroads” voices?
For whom do you give thanks at All Saints and All Souls?
Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison
Kyrie eleison
No comments:
Post a Comment