Edgework

Since starting to write regularly again about a year and a half ago I have posted 36 essays in which I explored lessons I am learning about spirituality as well as insights I have gleaned from observing life around me. I have enjoyed the journey and have learned a lot. In all, I have about 255 essays posted on line by now.

Early this year I was privileged to be to be able to engage a spiritual director to walk with me as I continue to learn what it means to be growing personally as a Jesus-follower. For many years I have read about how helpful meeting with a spiritual director regularly can be in one’s spiritual journey. I often wondered whether I would ever have the chance to try it out.

Well, it may have been providential that I heard from a friend recently who spoke highly of the spiritual director he was seeing regularly and the impact it was having on his life. When I inquired about whether his director would have room for me as well, I learned that in fact she did. So I have met with her a few times now and already it is becoming apparent that some surprising movements are taking place in my soul. It is exciting and somewhat unsettling at the same time.

For one, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, even at my age, I have so much to learn and experience about faith and life in the way of Jesus. Indeed, I often feel like a beginner again. The unsettling part involves unlearning some perspectives and life patterns of the past that have not been helpful in my growing process. In short, you might say that I am embarking on a new chapter that will require some changes to my life patterns and activities.

One of the assignments my spiritual director gave me was to do an “Awareness Examen” regularly for the next while. Basically it entails reviewing the events and experiences of each day taking note of which experiences resulted in gratefulness, giving and receiving of love, feeling alive – in other words, what was life-giving. And conversely, noting at the same time which events and experiences had the opposite effect. And then, her advice was to begin leaning more fully in the direction that which was life-giving.

It didn’t take me long to realize that significant chunks of my days were teetering in directions that were not life-giving. One of them was my obsession with American politics. I found that by following the links I could easily spend hours at my computer taking in all the minute details of daily happenings down South. Since I do have some strong biases about justice, truth, integrity, environment and civility, I also discovered that I was expending a lot of emotional energy on far away dynamics that I had little power to influence. So I have begun to lean away from being absorbed by the minutia of American political machinations. I still want to remain informed about what is happening so as not to be naïve about global affairs, but I am committed to not allowing those dynamics to suck the life blood out of my system.

This assignment is still on-going and I am sometimes both delighted and dismayed by what I am finding out about myself. For example, over the past few weeks this daily “Awareness Examen” shone some light on my writing endeavors. Often in the past I have found my mind full of ideas to write about. And, to be honest, when I was writing I usually felt fully alive because I was giving expression to a God-given gift. But over the past few weeks I gradually became aware that my hopper full of ideas to write about seemed to vanishing into thin air. Gradually I became aware that I was becoming anxious about what I would write about next. Not a good feeling! But why now, after so many years of experiencing satisfaction through word-craft?

The only conclusion I could come to was that, at least for the time being, I am being called to lay down my writing identity to make room for whatever God has in store for me on the journey I am on. On the one hand, this makes me sad and it hurts. It feels like an unwilling sacrifice I am asked to make. On the other hand, it fills me with anticipation, knowing that I will be free to fly for a while without feeling the need to report to the wider world what is happening in my life.

A few years ago, our faith community here in Altona focused on the theme, “Come to me!” Perhaps Eugene Peterson expresses it best in his paraphrase of Matthew 11:28 –

Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

I think it is providential that various authors I have read recently stress that in order to grow it is often necessary to give up something. Growth takes room, but if we don’t make any room, where can the growth happen? As an avid gardener, I know what this means in a vegetable garden.

So, this essay will be the last regular posting on line for the time being. I may feel free to post an essay from time to time. And who knows when I will feel ready to pick up my public word-crafting more vigorously again. If and when I do I may have discovered a more authentic voice.

I do remain open to connecting with any of my readers who wish to do so personally.