Great Guardian of hearth and horizon, soul and sail,

I have lifted my feet in obedience to an insistent wind.

I have lifted my head up above this tiny-rimmed being.

I have sought again what once was too costly.

I have set out once more upon a wildly restless sea –

and found what was looking for me.

I The End

I leave with too much chaos in the rearview mirror and too much uncertainty through the windshield to find confidence for the journey ahead. The idea of professional development in the city of my birth sounded good at the time. But now, the twelve hours between there and me promises only dead airtime – lots of it – in which to muse the unmuseable; the distance between an overactive head and underachieving heart. An emotional breakdown mere months earlier hangs like a bad smell in the car. The loneliest places are those most familiar, which no longer bring comfort. I think this will be my Gethsemane before the Paschal journey yet to come.

Hours become years in the unsettled mind. But the chronos of crisis never lasts. The familiarity of road spreads before me, rhyming itself with an inexplicable sense of watchfulness. (And, for me, a good playlist always helps). I become aware of something growing in newer soil; something that echoes out of better shadows – hope. It frightens and exhilarates me as day wanes and night fills the windshield with stars. Could this be God, rearranging God’s schedule for the days to come?

When it comes to the spiritual endeavour, I’ve always delighted in the iconic metaphor of wandering – passaging as I like to call it. My best guess is that it most capably represents my propensity for being lost in places even blind people navigate with ease – a hallway to the bathroom, the distance from upright to nosedive, or retracing my steps from mall to parking lot. 

One life tributary has led to another, each in turn yielding to something else on its way to waterfall or harbour, estuary or eddy. At times, I get stuck, unmoving; or so it seems. Frankly, to be stuck can be a decision not to decide something. Perhaps it’s a slow, deep spot before being sucked back out in the rapids where I easily lose my sense of direction and the not unreasonable expectation that I’ll fly ass-over-tea-kettle into the frothy spray. At other points, my boat slows to a crawl and I drift lazily along in the enchantment of a Pirates of the Caribbean-style rendezvous with delight.

For good or ill, it is my goal to passage well. In the ever-expanding journal of my circuitous journey, the increased clarity of a breadcrumb path always brings some satisfaction of adequate closure before moving on to another part of the story. It expresses a sense of poise and, ultimately, denouement to this life that those whose eyes are watching for signs of the Divine are longing to see.

At a Jesuit retreat and conference centre, the kinetics of kinship, sublimation of self, and a society of sojourners as inquisitive as I – equally reticent? – are set to begin the holy spin cycle that is Vocational Excellence. The point of this exercise is to wrangle into some sense of tidy usefulness the varied and complex detritus that is our personal-professional journey – a Rule of Life.

I love life. Rules? Not so much.

And so, a trembling lad peers through the shop window otherwise known as ordination, or at least the process thereof, and sees a combination of delights and dares; an invitation laden with perspiration. Inspiration that taunts inadequacies. I come to the end of the beginning, a new hallway of discovery, awaiting what doors may open and which are closing.

I’m happy either way.