A few summers ago I went to visit my cousin Barbara in Asheville, North Carolina. Her husband of more than 50 years had recently died from cancer, and she was dealing with the normal grieving process. We hadn’t seen one another in several years, so we had a lot to talk about. By day, she showed me all of the beautiful sights western North Carolina has to offer. In the evenings we chatted away, long into the night.

Barbara and I have traveled remarkably similar paths in life. Our childhood was difficult and confusing. Our early and middle adulthood was wild and bizarre. Both of us lost our faith in God and argued with people at length against his existence. We also suffered our share of pain, suffering and disappointment, most of which was self-inflicted.

So, years later, talking to one another about God, life and how both of us had so dramatically turned our lives around, it was only natural to be truly amazed at the outcome. It’s something neither of us could have ever imagined years earlier. Peace and joy had eluded us for so much of our lives, but while we were talking about it, we both realized that we were indeed full of peace and joyful. All of that miserable generalized fear and anxiety had just seemed to vanish over time.

Something else that Barbara and I also share is a sort of grim determination to succeed at what we set our hearts on. So, when we both decided to turn our lives around (mine 1o years later than hers), we did so with a vengeance. In so doing, it was as if God and the universe took notice of our efforts and led us, not always gracefully, to where we needed to be.

I wondered about that as we talked. And as we continued talking, me half wondering what had really happened to us, it all of a sudden like a lightening bolt struck me – understanding! At that moment, while I didn’t understand the how of it, I recognized the direction of it and the reason for it. I saw my actions and God’s actions working, not always together, to achieve that which I did not yet know I desired, but that which God desired for me. I suppose I had merely learned to conform my will to God’s will. It had been a process. I got the sense that during the entire span of more than 20 years, God had, as they say, “kept me on a very long leash” There was a tremendous sense of loving freedom knowing this. And, oddly, it seemed that God had perhaps even respected my wishes to turn my back on him and even deny him to others. This too, I understood, had been part of the plan. I thought how hard that must have been for God, but I was suddenly devastated by my own betrayal. I was truly contrite and filled with remorse. I had never acknowledged it to anyone, including myself until that night. But in spite of my deep sorrow to God, my overiding feeling was one of the unspeakable love that God has for me, for Barbara, and for all of us. In spite of all the mistakes, lies, hatred, violence and abuse of which we are capable, we can all make it back to God and be welcomed as prodigal sons and daughters.

I never considered this to be any kind of “mystical” or special experience. It’s not like I had suddenly “arrived” or become enlightened. It’s much simpler than that, but elegant in its simplicity. It seems to me that it was perhaps the recognition of the end of one part of the formation process of my spiritual life. And, to find its true meaning, to understand its real significance, and ultimately to find redemption, I had to look at it only after gaining the proper perspective. Only then was I able to see it all, and to understand God’s part in it and my part in it. It was never one sided. It was always us.

I suppose my point to all of this is that I see life in general, and the spiritual life in particular as a multi-faceted process taking place over time. In my case it has and continues to take place over many years. Rather than discrete, random events forming my life, it has been rather a series of movements, some my own and others God’s. They have come together in some mysterious way that I have only been able to recognize and understand in retrospect. Only when one phase is over am I able to understand that portion of the journey which has been completed. While engaged in the process, I rarely knew what was happening. All I knew for sure was to take the next indicated step.

God’s Peace.
Steve

There is always a higher power guiding the wanderings of all living beings. God is that hand which points to the truth, the way and the life of the holy spirit.

Dear Steve,

There is so very much in your reflections here that resonates with my own experience. Thank you for opening up that much of your life and heart to us.

Your closing point, echoed by Simon, is an important one. So often I feel like a child trying to make sense of things with my limited knowledge and understanding as it is in this moment. As children we don’t always understand the higher, more informed, more expansive and inclusive logic of the parent. In our ignorance, it is the parent who seems foolish, unreasonable, capricious, yet these are actually just projections and reflections of our own shortcomings. I try to remember this whenever I hear myself or someone else saying in doubt, “If God was really a reasonable loving God, then why…?”

I also think some of this just comes with aging for many of us. Over time hindsight gives us outward and visible evidence of a Divine Wisdom we otherwise only know through faith, intuition, or mystical revelation.

Thanks again, Steve. It is so very important for us to tell our stories and put human faces on our mystical lives.

Agape,
Chuck

I like the quip, “Just because I’m wandering doesn’t mean I’m lost!”