What one sees is not always what one seeks.

And what one seeks is not always what one says.

And what one says is not always what one starts.

It’s okay, there’s no difference between what

I didn’t see yesterday and what landed itself full upright

in today’s path, muse-appointed.

There are the moments when, at a

full stride, forehead high and strong,

come words and stories, notes and beams,

high-stepping toes, pointed at heaven;

brushstrokes for love or anger, life or less –

those are the boldest strokes, the highest notes,

the brightest steps…

The sound of music is good wherever notes 

find you. Let it be your symphony.

The initial reticence I felt as I warmed a car seat for twelve hours – with all the attendant over-thinking to which I’m already prone – promptly unravelled upon arrival. My penchant for wow-factor uniqueness finds a backseat in favour of the welcome mat of other faith-commoners; like-minded, thirsty-souled, vocationally-curious individuals more like me than I care to admit. It would prove to be one of the most significant weeks of my personal and professional life.

Since God loves the twist-in-the-tale, this mystic-philosopher-poet-dreamer-romantic-idealist-non-pragmatist is ripe to meet the vacuum at the shallow end of his soul. In company with fellow travellers of the Way, I come up wanting every time, albeit with a blossoming knowledge that “all manner of thing shall be well” (Julian of Norwich, Showings).

Via Negativa

Staying true to my “via negativa” modus operandi, the most significant gleanings from the week are found in what I don’t want to be about; who I don’t want to be. I’ve been in professional ministry long enough to enjoy a few tricks of the trade sufficient to dazzle and woo – successfully limping through that ministry for many years. It isn’t the material so much as the context for it. Many words are spoken, good ones. But, it is parsing those same words with other colleagues that distills the broadest reality. It makes for a week of living object lessons of what’s missing most in my experience: the mutuality of friendship, the deeper blessing of stability and sobriety, and a renewed commitment to monastic spirituality: ora et labora – prayer and work.

The intentionality of connection and outward motion is a challenge for a poster-boy Enneagram 4 (The Individualist), INFP (Meyers-Briggs), who loves passive-aggressive self-pity. If seeking a life more patterned after historic saints is what I seek, these ones prove just as good; perhaps better given their physical presence in the room. Proximity makes immediate the holy danger of accountability in the Jesus Way.

Through many words rich with advice and good counsel, it is the relentless voice of God that most unsettles me. God impresses only a few simple things, repeatedly. Repeatedly. Re….It is those things that spin around my head and to which I now turn.

* * * * *

I am twice adopted. In biological terms, this means effectively that I am riddled with fear – of risk, of invalidation, of abandonment, of failure – of success. Pursuant to this is a terrible sense of boundaries, which to one such as I, are not an end, but a means to it.

I suffer from GAD, (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), mild OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), and CGEODD (Can’t Get Enough of Disorders Disorder). I live in a veritable sea of worry, and panic, and the over-thinking commensurate thereof.

I’m a recovering alcoholic. Given the first two points, this should come as little surprise.

I have mountains of unresolved pain, grief, and guilt. I grieve poorly.

I am a mystic-contemplative in a culture, drunk on self-important pragmatism, that eats such ones for lunch.

Via Positiva

I’m a gifted musician, writer, poet, and liturgist. With these gifts, I’ve been blessed to draw others with me into the shimmering thin places that life can truly be.

I have a deeply intuitive, imaginative spirituality; an abundantly creative orthopraxis, so to speak.

I’m gifted in interpersonal conflict resolution – ironic, given my depth of hatred for the same.

I’m a gifted teacher and group facilitator.

I’m a culture and bridge-builder, finding ways for diverse segments of the church to envision a better way to walk the Way.

I’m compassionate and like to hear travel tales of other sojourners.

I’m very funny. No, really.

I’m a handsome, irresistibly debonair, man-about-town simply fun to be around.

Best of all, with much hard work and prayer, I’ve finally been gifted with self-forgetful humility (superglue tongue to cheek here).

A Rule of Life will, for me, bridge these two lists.

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.

What follows is not a statement of political preference – although with little effort one could easily determine my ideology. Nor is this a kumbaya-just-come-to-Jesus plea by someone without convictions who just needs a hug. Nor is it a milk-toast acquiescence to fatalistic non-action. This is a simple exhortation for us to stop living from our heads, perhaps even our hearts.

It is an invitation for us all to rediscover ourselves. Our souls.

Anyone within spitting distance of social media the past few weeks, uh, months…well, years actually, has had to endure the cage match that has become political discourse in this country. Chances are you jumped in to scrap on occasion as well. Come on, admit it, doesn’t it feel positively cathartic to drop your well-reasoned, deftly-articulated, bulletproof opinions into the foxhole and then run back and wait for the barrage of new disciples? 

I confess, despite self-promises to the contrary, I too have sparred from time to time online. I too have seen what you have seen – a massive groundswell of support and teary-eyed repentance because someone, namely me, finally spoke the truth.

Yeah, that’s what happened.

Actually, I merely added to the carnage of dry bones philosophizing in the desert of ignorance, that welcomed a never ending explosion of verbal piranha-ism. There was no change whatsoever in anyone’s beliefs. Ever. And, if anything I walked away inwardly disheveled and outwardly grumpy. No one gained anything at all from the exchange, least of all me. My soul was tattered and, worse still, I was beset by a deepening sense of guilt for having added to the seething Gehenna that is Facebook politics. The Twitterisms of twattle. I bred dissension rather than being an instrument of peace (thank you Saint Francis).  

Now that the exhausting (and tellingly self-important) process that is the American election cycle has come to an end, I have peace. Oddly. I think it’s a bit like getting a needle at the doctor’s office. The waiting is always the worst part. Well, usually. We’ve endured a two and a half year drum roll, waiting to hear the fat lady sing after the failed attempt to shoot someone out of a cannon.

We can easily get stuck between the clarion call of a golden era, hiding somewhere in our not-so-distant past. Or, we become dilettantes of some visionary Utopia yet to be unveiled. Either way, we miss the sweetness of this moment.

This sound. That smile.

This smell. That embrace.

This possibility. That touch.

This challenge. That kiss.

Listen, I’m not happy that Donald Trump is our President. I’m not happy that almost half the population didn’t even bother to vote. I’m not happy with the entire political process in this country. I’m not happy with the deep divisions that exist among us.

But, I am in fact, happy. Or, in faith language, I’m blessed. I have peace in the aftermath. It is the unquantifiable peace of Christ, whose love is so much stronger than our naïve opinions and murky thoughts.

So, here I share my personal Beatitudes for the coming days of uncertainty, safe in the knowledge that I need neither knowledge nor safety nor certainty, to be blessed.

Dear friends, will you join me in pursuing such blessing?

__ 

Blessed is the one who awoke to draw breath for another day.

Blessed is the one who sees him/herself in the eyes of another. 

Blessed is the one who appreciates the dare of morning and the hush of night. 

Blessed is the one who finds solace in the laughter of children.

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom in the presence of elders.

Blessed is the one who cannot find hatred within, no matter who sits in power.

Blessed is the one whose speech is poetry, whose work is homily, whose life is liturgy.

Blessed is the one who sees past the surface to find the goodness in things.

Blessed is the one whose trust isn’t in flag, policy, or party – but in the Christ of love. 

Blessed is the one.

Blessed is. 

Blessed.

Bless.