‘... the journey of spiritual growth requires courage and initiative and independence of thought and action. While the words of the prophets and the assistance of grace are available, the journey must still be travelled alone. No teacher can carry you there. There are no preset formulas. Rituals are only learning aids, they are not the learning. Eating organic food, saying five Hail Marys before breakfast, praying facing east or west, or going to church on Sunday will not take you to your destination. No words can be said, no teaching can be taught that will relieve spiritual travellers from the necessity of picking their own ways, working out with effort and anxiety their own paths through the unique circumstances of their own lives toward the identification of their individual selves with God.’ (M. Scott Peck. The Road Less Travelled.)Another unplanned and unexpectedly long break from these pages has been brought to an end by my continuing need to unravel thoughts through the, at times, laborious writing process. It is not, in fact, the writing with which I struggle, but the process of dragging my thoughts – more accurately perhaps, the emotions and depth of feeling in which they are frequently wrapped – into a form of submission, and then forcing them onto the page. Once there, however buried, hidden, fragmented, disguised or diaphanous they may still be, some poorly executed sketch of them is at least anchored before me. I have something which cannot escape me again; and though I still may not know what it is that is striving to be understood, I do at least have something. That matters.
I have made known that I have gained from these pages when reading them back months after writing them, but I have gradually, and more frequently, found himself becoming one of the audience: as though not always aware of that with which I have been filled until after its overflowing.
Perhaps it is time for me to lose any lack of responsibility which may have been hiding behind my wish to remain unseen among my fellow sheep, in spite of my awareness of having been searched for, and found. In shedding any sturdily erected pretence that I have not already learned that I must accept some form of responsibility, I may find myself able to bathe more fully in my knowledge that I have already returned home to find that I am a much loved son. From within that all enveloping warmth and gentle pressure: that brief recurrence of a return to the spiritual womb in which I had been formed, and from which I was brought into being, I may find the parallel, and presently absent, awareness and reality of my also being a brother: the long awaited and longed for opportunity to be part of something greater than my solitary dreams. To take my place, wherever that may be, as part of a quorum of two, or group of three; or more. A meaningful and productive meeting of hearts, minds and souls in His name, from which may come the blossom, and the fruit, of which, as yet, I can see no sign.
The frail, half understood something – the anchored word that is so important to me as a graspable start-point – seems increasingly difficult to find; and, as my most recent experience of hunting for it has shown, even finding it does not necessarily mean I am close to successfully pinning it out for dissection and subsequent understanding. I have been bogged down in a sea of words for several weeks: trying to wade among them as though moving through treacle. Whenever they have formed into a few sentences strung together, they have made sense to me, but the next fragment of truth or understanding, or feeling of direction, may have no apparent connection with whatever else I have just trapped. Clicking on ‘save’ after every small string of words feels like tripping the door on a cage: “Got it!” Every click ensures I will have something to feed on tomorrow, rather than having to go hunting again. That also matters.
Struggling to capture something substantial from among my thoughts can be enjoyable, but not when it occupies most of my waking hours today, and tomorrow, and the following day ... The hunt is only the beginning, and no beginning has meaning if it is never followed by the next step, however long or short the search may be. The hunter who never bags his prey will starve to death. The thinker who never nails down a thought will disintegrate without ever coming to an awareness of who he or she is. The praying person who remains trapped in cosy devotions, liturgical forms, habitual repetitions, superficial needs and uttered words, but never searches for a path along which he or she may truly share in the companionship of Christ, will fade unseen, and unmissed (in spiritual terms), from the face of the earth.
Those who, like myself, search for whatever it is they are called to do without ever seeming to find it, also (I believe) wander towards a fading light, and will themselves fade from sight; but we do not all fade away. Some will tire of their search and go home to settle into another less troubling mindset, and these could indeed be said to do so. Others, however, may be more lastingly affected by their experience, either tending towards crumbling within the debilitating sensations of their frustration and the apparent waste of potential in their lives, or, through perseverance, reaching a point at which they see the whole experience, however long-running it may have been, as a time of preparation and waiting in obedience to God’s will: a time of wakefulness and watching, during which, far from having failed to hear God’s call, they have resisted and rejected the many thoughts and ideas which have tempted them, but which have not come from Him. A lesson in discernment, and a testing perhaps, for more challenging decisions yet to be made?
My recent struggles to untangle and make sense of my own situation, have been part of a new dawning that has slowly brought light into my own separation from almost everything and everyone. Recent weeks have brought contact and conversation with someone (Hope) who has seemed to be holding a door open for me. Through the self-enforced process of seeking understanding of myself through the written word (my own written words, and now, finally, through placing some sort of result from that process here), I have come to acknowledge the possibility that I may have to include myself among those whose waiting has been a time of preparation.
As such, any sense of relief accompanying this broadening awareness is purely momentary, as it gives way to a greater determination, and to a conviction that we have not only the happy intention, but the ability to watch and wait for as long as may be necessary. It also brings an increasing acceptance of our heightened awareness that the nature of the call cannot necessarily be anticipated. But, by returning to, and resolutely remaining in our places: by standing our ground, we have already answered a call; we have been “called up”, and have responded in ways that have made us ready to put on the full armour of God. We are ready, willing and able to respond to whatever may be required of us. That in itself is a powerful response; one that is built on the hard rock of endurance.
But – and this is the thought that brought the initial glint of something brightening on my horizon – could it be that there are far more of us in that position today than we have ever imagined? Are we, after all, not the apparently isolated, fearful, shy and ineffective persons we had taken ourselves to be? – longing to be part of some greater happening, yet seemingly unable to gain access to whatever it is that we need to actually make it happen? We each see ourselves as deficient in some way; one believes himself to be blind; another that she is deaf; one is lost; another is asleep; some have fallen, but none of us have stayed down – those who have are not among us. Some, fallen, and feeling unable to stand once more, found themselves lifted to their feet by others among whom they suddenly found themselves. We are all made aware that we have not been walking our paths alone; nor, in our watching and waiting, do we stand alone.
We are being called to ‘grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of his power’ (Ephesians 6:10)
‘So stand your ground,
with truth a belt round your waist, and uprightness a breastplate,
wearing for shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread the gospel of peace'
(Ephesians 6:14-15)
