"For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall."
Psalm 18:29
Over
the past six years I’ve gone through tremendous spiritual and
theological transition, reorientation, realignment, refocus, reflection,
and pilgrimage (and any other words that may betray a new and
unexpected participation in existence).
Perhaps
more than ever, over the last three years than over the last thirty, I
have begun to appreciate the Zen-like riddles of theological and
spiritual enquiry. I have become disillusioned with much of the circus
called Christendom and have discovered that this gentle prophet of
Galilee can still show up in the most unlikely of places entreating me
with a vibrant array of new questions.
To
quote Brian Zahnd - "I was weary of the tired clichés of bumper-sticker
evangelicalism. I was disenchanted by a paper-thin Christianity propped
up by cheap certitude." Brian, if we ever meet the coffee is on me!
I've
also been labeled heretic, emergent, liberal, compromising, a false
prophet, a false teacher, weird, backslidden, eccentric, a hero, a
saint, an artist, a true prophet, a seeker, whatever... Most people keep
their thoughts to themselves. They show great restraint and decline to
bomb my inbox with caustic verbal napalm. It does seem as if personal
epitaphs delight in swimming in an open ended ocean of opinion and
heresay.
There
has been the odd and painful day, along with the odd and painful month.
There have also been times of significant insight and deeper awareness.
To quote the lines of a recent poem of mine: "On the inside I sometimes
feel like cough syrup, dust, and wrinkles—at other times I feel like
starlight, dew, and an ocean breeze." There have been broad zones of
spiritual enquiry and freedom along with narrow stone streets that bear a
remarkable resemblance to the rigid dystopian cities of the movie
Divergent. My post-apocalyptic version of myself wanted in someway touch
the woven green stuff beyond the barricades of what was considered
acceptable thought.
"Don't leap over the walls," old Steve used to say.
But
God has gone and flirtatiously dropped a handkerchief in those Elysian
fields, drawing my thoughts to behold a far more lovely Face of the
Divine, one I have never seen before.
Russian
poet and theologian Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) once wrote, "I saw
all, and all was one—a single image of womanly beauty, pregnant with
vastnesses! Before me, in me— only You." There is wine there - don't you
think? A place where I need to take both shoes from off my dusty and
bleeding feet and simply discover the place of presence and beauty.
I
am 53 this year, probably 60% of my life breath has gone, and I must
say I am more excited about my remaining tomorrows than ever before.
Maybe I should be grieving over lost time? At times I feel the pain of
regret - for words spoken and beliefs enforced, but I do know that the
second half of life is a journey I would not miss for anything—I have
been gaining new eyes. The cheap religious certitude I once carried
within baffles me now. A tawdry spirituality that beckons sabre rattling
and violent rhetoric appears toxic to my soul (and probably your soul
as well) if you have been on a similar quest for the mystic and the
beautiful.
Though
some of you may read and look with curious and puzzled glances thinking
"What circus is he visiting now? What brazen clowns are force feeding
him hot air dipped in error?", others may appreciate my writings and
meanderings of soul on Facebook and other social media platforms. The
shifting tectonic plates of spiritual perspective still grind away, they
continue to expose a whispering ancient poetry in an unknown tongue... I
think I am recovering a part of my soul I have never met before, and
maybe you are too?
