Discipleship: Falling/Faltering/Following

Beloved, I long to know the depth of your life in me--

At times I feel so hopelessly apart from you--

so profoundly lost and alone, without the security

and protection of your love--

I pray to trust that you live deep inside me--

and are guiding my every step with your love.

To follow you feels so precarious--

yet, to do otherwise feels like death--

An Atheist's Christmas Carol

It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise
And holding fast with sharp realization
It's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
You are safe here you now

--Lyrics from "The Atheist Christmas Carol"
By Vienna Teng

I think of a patient I met a several months ago. Byron (not his real name) was in his eighties and becoming sicker. He knew he was coming to the end of his life and seemed to accept it. He was an atheist but he welcomed my visits, and one morning, we had a lovely chat.
       Turns out Byron knew a lot about the bible and about Christian theology, especially some contemporary Catholic theologians such as Teilhard de Chardin. Byron had grown up in Texas--in the "bible belt"--and was turned off by the extreme fundamentalist beliefs of the people around him. Even now, he said, he had a niece back home who always prayed for him, that he might at last accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Byron loved his niece but didn't feel "seen" by her. He found it hard to reconcile so many (or any) of these beliefs with his own thinking, learning, and intelligence. None of it made sense to him, and I wondered if any of it would have made sense to me had I grown up in that kind of environment.
       I felt sad for Byron. He seemed so kind and open. I wondered if the God he was presented was too small for him, and if he thought his only choice was to reject a belief in God rather than reject such narrow beliefs about God.
     I don't know if this is what Byron thought. These are just my thoughts and perhaps they reflect my own experience: a sense of sometimes being too confined inside the doctrines and traditions of my chosen religion when what my heart and my imagination desire is to run free: to discover what lives inside me and to proclaim what I know about God without claiming to know God . . .

Re-acquainting: Note to G-d

And I feel such a desire
to be with You now, away
from all that religion and all that talk--
Away from all the fuss and striving--
We are friends now, old friends--
We can sit beside each other in silence
and not feel awkward or afraid--


(Journal note, 2003)

"Accept the Inevitable Tumult and Struggle"

This prayer is by Etty Hillesum from her diaries published posthumously in a book called An Interrupted Life. I have been reading it these last couple weeks and, as a wise friend told me, it is a trustworthy roadmap for the spiritual journey. And Etty is fast becoming one of the best companions I have found along this path.

Etty Hillesum, 1914 - 1943, died at Auschwitz

God, take me by Your hand, I shall follow You dutifully, and not resist too much. I shall evade none of the tempests life has in store for me, I shall try to face it all as best I can. But now and then grant me a short respite. I shall never again assume, in my innocence, that any peace that comes my way will be eternal. I shall accept all the inevitable tumult and struggle. I delight in warmth and security, but I shall not rebel if I have to suffer cold, should You so decree. I shall follow wherever Your hand leads me and shall try not to be afraid. I shall try to spread some of my warmth, of my genuine love for others, wherever I go. But we shouldn't boast of our love for others. We cannot be sure it really exists. I don't want to be anything special, I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise. I sometimes imagine that I long for the seclusion of a nunnery. But I know that I must seek You amongst people, out in the world.