Gaps and Doors

I’d like to invite you on a journey. It’s familiar in some ways. But let me caution you
as Dallas Willard does in the opening pages of “The Divine Conspiracy”:

“Presumed familiarity breeds … unsuspected unfamiliarity, and then contempt. And contempt can lead to profound ignorance.” [i]

People who think they already know are inclined to stop listening, not realizing there is more.  Just a few lines down, Willard says,

“In its deepest nature and meaning our universe is a community of boundless and totally competent love.” [ii]

So of course, there is more. A boundless more to life and a boundless more to God, than I currently know. But do I live open to more? Is my picture of God fixed based on what I now know? Or is it evolving, growing, expanding?

For most of my adult life I read, studied, and learned about God. There came to be a familiarity and intellectual nature to it. Then life swept me into unfamiliar and desolate land where all I knew wasn’t sustaining me. I lost my sense of certainty in the familiar…  and thank God! For the opposite of faith isn’t doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.

Frederick Buechner reassures us that “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” [iii] Where doubts spur us on, certainty can keep us stuck. Certain answers. Certain pictures of God. Certain interpretations of scripture. My doubts made my unsuspected unfamiliarity more visible. All my years of study and learning weren’t wrong. There was simply more. And the map for that was different.

I wonder, is the danger of overfamiliarity ever more present than in our most loved and read stories of faith?  I would count the Christmas story as one of those. And so, I want to approach it with great care.

With care today, I ask God for the grace of openness and courage to travel into questions that ask for vulnerability, where I might freshly encounter a community of boundless and totally competent Love.

With care today, I take a less traveled route and follow in the footsteps of wisemen to the Christ child. The church often relegates this to Epiphany, the season after Christmas. But for me at least, it often gets lost in the shadows of Christmas.  And this is a Christmas journey – a journey to the Christ child.

And with care today, I engage a newer translation of scripture– an indigenous version published by InterVarsity. It names people and places following the native tradition of highlighting their features, character, and nature, a practice found throughout the biblical narrative.

Today, let me tell you a story … an ancient story of a long journey. Lean back, open your heart, release your familiarity, and just listen.

It was during the days of the bad-hearted Chief Looks Brave (Herod) that the Chosen One was born in the village of House of Bread (Bethlehem) in the Land of Promise (Judea).  After his birth, Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) traveling on a long journey from the East came to Village of Peace (Jerusalem).  

They began to ask around, “Where is the one who has been born to be chief of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel)? We saw his star where the sun rises and have come to humble ourselves before him and honor him.” 

When Chief Looks Brave heard this, he and all who lived in Village of Peace (Jerusalem) were troubled. He called a council of al the head holy men and scroll keepers and asked them where the Chosen One was to be born.

“In House of Bread (Bethlehem), the village of the great chief Much Loved One (David),” they answered. “This is what the ancient prophet said: ‘But you, O House of Bread (Bethlehem), in the Land of Promise (Judea), even though you are small, you have a good reputation with the chiefs who watch over the land. From you will come a Great Chief who will guide my chosen people – the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel).” 

Then Looks Brave (Herod) called a secret council with the Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) to find out when the star first appeared. He then sent them to House of Bread (Bethlehem) and told them, “Look everywhere for the child. Find him and tell me where he is, so that I may also come and honor him.” 

After listening to Looks Brave (Herod), the Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) went their way. When they saw the star rising in the East, they jumped with joy, and with glad hearts they followed until the star stopped and rested over the place where the child was.  They went into the house and saw the child and his mother, Bitter Tears (Mary). As soon as they saw the child, they bowed down to honor him. Then they opened their bundles and gifted him with gold, sweet-smelling incense, and bitter ointment of myrrh.

The Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) were warned in a dream not to go back to Looks Brave (Herod), so they returned to their homeland by a different road.  (Matthew 2:1-12) [iv]

As I sit with this story, these are things I notice and questions that surface. I hold these out to you, inviting you to consider them too.

• I’m curious about their names. “Looks Brave” isn’t the same as brave. Things and people are not always as they appear. “Seekers of Wisdom” who leave the familiar and the overly familiar on an indefinite journey in the dark, now that seems brave.

I’ve recently become acutely aware of my human tendency to evaluate things on the surface of what I know or see, and then (even better, wink) fill in the gaps with worst-case scenario “what ifs”. I think it’s some kind of self-protective strategy, which is anything but.  Filling in the gaps leaves no room for hope. Hope needs gaps, the dark and unanswered places in our stories, to grow. My fresh awareness surfaces questions: What is the story I’m telling myself? How might I better tend to the gaps? This is a question I’m asking God.

• The “Seekers of Wisdom” were drawn by the lights they studied. Something in their known world invited them toward Someone in a world unknown to them. An invitation hidden in plain sight drew them into more. And these academic, deeply intellectual, wise men weren’t content to study only with their minds. The light urged them to come and see. Not stay home in their familiar world and endlessly study this. Not come and figure out. But come and see. Step out …and out …and out. They engaged their whole selves, their minds, yes, and their bodies on a physical journey, and their heart’s desire to show honor and humble themselves. They “jumped with joy and glad hearts” along an embodied, literal way. Led by a star and their hearts to see Mystery, not solve Mystery.

How comfortable am I with the mystery of God? Resistance can show up in endless ways from avoiding deep questions, to solving them with quick answers, to keeping them at arms distance by staying in my head.

• I always saw the wise men as “outsiders”. And I’m really struck by “outsiders” whose desire was to humble themselves and honor Jesus. I’ve met some such “outsiders” recently, and am so drawn to their humble, honoring hearts. These “outsiders” have taken on names and faces for me. And their hearts are beautiful.

What is my desire this Advent and Christmas season? This is another question I’m asking myself and God. Honestly, I want to be more like the “outsiders” I know.

• I notice the wisdom seekers got lost on the way. They lost sight of the light they followed. So, they stopped and asked for directions. They’d devoted their lives to studying stars, and still they got lost. And when they did, these experts were open to redirection … humble. Getting lost, feeling stuck are normal, expected occurrences in the spiritual journey. It is not a straightforward linear path. And while deeply personal, it’s not a journey we take without company or guidance. These seekers asked for help the best they knew how. It was their openness, not their right execution, which kept them on a good journey.

I bump into more questions here: Who are my companions? Who are my guides? I wonder about my posture … Am I open? Accepting? Humble? Or am I trying to do this right?  Am I trying to stay safe? …yea. Am I trying to figure it out? …yea. Do I think this is largely up to me? … sometimes. Maybe here, in my responses, are seeds of the humility I seek.

I find again, instead of answers, just more questions: In any way, do I feel lost?  Where have I lost the thread of the good story? Where have I lost the light? Lost a sense of hope? not positivity or optimism, but real hope – which, like the star, can only be seen in the dark. Can I simply name my lost places to God, without any shame or guilt?  Because getting lost is part of the journey.

Thomas Merton says: “This is where so many holy people break down … As soon as they reach the point where they can no longer see the way and guide themselves by their own light, they refuse to go any further…. (but) It is in this darkness that we find true liberty. It is in this abandonment that we are made strong. This is the night that empties us” [v]

What if “empty” is good? Empty to let gaps be gaps. Empty to clear out things we once needed on our spiritual journeys that have outlived their usefulness … ideals, habits, attachments, and perceptions that have become heavy, unhelpful, or just not enough. We don’t even have to know what it is we need to let go of – we just need some spark of willingness and courage for the letting go, the becoming open and humble, that God desires to do in us. Do I want to be willing? That can begin a good conversation with God.

While we’re still on the journey, before we arrive, I’d like to share an image with you. A painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner. Images help me enter a story more deeply and bring my whole self, like the wisdom seekers who took a journey with their head and heart and body.

Henri Nouwen also encourages this:

“Every time I try to meditate on a sacred event in Scripture, I find myself tempted to think about it in an intellectual way. But today I realized more strongly than ever before that I simply have to be there. I have to travel with (them), walk with them … join the (scene), and listen … Why do we want more? … The story is so simple, so crystal clear, so unpretentious. I do not have to do anything with it. I do not have to explain or examine these events. I simply have to step into them and allow them to surround me.” [vi]

Here are some questions to consider as you slowly study the painting:

– What do you notice? What first captures your attention?

– And then go deeper, let yourself enter in, allow the scene to surround you, and look around. What details catch your attention?

– What sensations or textures do you feel?

– What sounds do you hear?

– What smells arise?

– Where do you find yourself in this painting? Or not.

– Where do you sense God in this painting? Or not.

– Notice any emotions that surface.

– How might this connect with your life?

– Do you sense an invitation?

– Does a prayer surface – something you want to ask or offer to God?

Amid this Advent, a season of darkening days, consider its’ invitation to move toward and with the dark. To be in the dark. Feel the dark. Because it’s in the darkness (in the gaps), we discover hope. So often I think I’ve got to get out of the present darkness to find some hope. But this Christmas journey tells me otherwise. The prophet Hosea confirms, there is a different map for this. The door of hope isn’t out there in the light of day. The door of hope is located within the valley of trouble. Be in the desolate place, Hosea urges. Wait in this wilderness for hope. [vii]

Author Gayle Boss echoes, “The dark is not an end, but a door. This is the way a new beginning comes.” [viii] – for those who want and those who need, and those who are open and willing to wait in the dark, for a new beginning.

Advent’s invitation does not require you to Look Brave. Advent invites you on a journey with Seekers of Wisdom, whose heart’s desire is to see God, a community of boundless and totally competent Love.

And so, a blessing for the wisdom seekers this season …

May your eyes be open to see more and more of God because your hearts are open -humble and desiring to honor- and there is always more of our boundless God to see.  May you mind the gap. May you see more. May you find hope.  Amen.

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”.   Matthew 5:8

Hope

Nudged by hope
the heart rises
from exhaustion.

It’s like the great blue heron
I saw this morning
flying up from a wasteland

on broad gray wings
with strong, slow beats
for a moment charged

with grace
before—did you
see this, heart?—

it chose to land again,
bringing all its beauty
to the desolate place.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer [ix]

Today I walked with a friend along the Chattahoochee River. It’s barely rained for months. Miles of mud and muck. Then we spotted a very focused heron, and delightedly watched him catch a fish, then leave us for the distant shore.

For Reflection

• Revisit the questions, the images, the poetry above. Share what surfaces with God.

• As you go about your days, look for the gaps and look for the doors. Invite God into both.

Whales

“This is a God-bathed and God-permeated world.”

[i] Dallas Willard

“All the things in this world are created because of God’s love and they become a context of gifts, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.”

[ii] St Ignatius of Loyola

We live within a “context of gifts”. Sometimes that’s apparent to me.  Other times, I lose sight. When life is busy, loud, common, or crowded, my connection with God and the reflection of God in the world can feel spotty at best.  So, I take my cue from a long line of others, including Jesus, who step away momentarily – seeking stillness, silence, and solitude – to tend my soul that needs connection with God.  I need to regularly experience, not just intellectually agree, that this is a God-bathed, God-permeated world. A felt connection with God informs, forms, and feeds me. 

In a world notorious for busy, loud or just stringently routine, it’s helpful to share experiences of this God-bathed, God-permeated world we live in together. And so, I’d like to lend you my recent encounter, and allow it room to inform, perhaps form, and feed us.  

In August, I boarded a small ship in Alaska for a circuitous journey through the Inside Passage, where we would meander – adjust our path and pace to whatever we encountered on the way. Meandering allows for interruptions, and the first arrived on Day One around 4:30pm. A sighting of killer whales from the bridge engulfed me in a crowd, a mass of excited people making our way above deck to see for ourselves.

READ MORE HERE

A Garden

Gardening is teaching me to notice the very small. Today, I marvel at a cucumber plant’s thin tendril curled in tiny ringlets around a neighboring pepper cage. Fragile and strong, it’s doing what it can to lift out of dirt and reach toward light.  Removing low-lying tomato stems, I find a baby tomato hidden in the leaves J … with a big hole in its side L.  There are holes in the sunflower leaves too, and the basil. I panic and want to kill something! But my friend takes it all in stride. “There will be more tomatoes,” she promises. “Just wait and see.”

With the help of a friend, I’ve planted my first vegetable garden. I check it frequently and am amazed as little shoots actually peek through the dirt. It’s science, right? You plant in good dirt and plentiful sunshine, add water as needed, and in time … things grow. It works for others; I just didn’t imagine it happening under my watch.

It strikes me that these shoots, buds, and blooms come at a time we often label “the end of the year”. This overfull month of May holds great paradox, one that’s easy to miss in our busyness: we celebrate the end (of the school year and everything that follows its cycle) and the world begins to bloom. There are new beginnings all around and within us that have been growing underground for a while. Like small, tentative shoots, they may be mostly hidden and unknown. Sometimes we are the last to see what’s happening in us.

Thomas Kelly describes the crucial inside work of a spiritual life: “Deep within us all”, he says, “there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.”[i] We engage this work with practices like silence, solitude, stillness, and meditation. With God, we till the soil, break the ground, dig holes, plant seeds, that are watered and fed with light on the inside of us.

This season of paradox can be a good time to notice our tender shoots, buds and blossoms – a good time to reflect upon the “path that’s unfolded behind us” and to “look back and see the signposts”[ii], as a poem by Lynn Unger names. I’d like to describe these signposts or shoots as Graces: gifts from God, concrete expressions – interiorly and exteriorly – of God’s love.[iii]

The invitation of this season is to notice and gather the graces[iv]. Likely it’s too early to tell exactly what they will become; so that’s not the point. We reach “the end of the year” not with finished business, but with new beginnings. These are worth celebrating. They also need tending. This is more the point. So, as I describe some of the signposts or graces that may be emerging in your life, be open to God stirring resonance and remembrance in you. Because this is not an exhaustive list, something else may come to mind. Gather those graces too. We will each have our own unique bouquet.

A grace to begin with:  Gratitude and Delight. Gratitude is not a list; It’s a grace. Not a striving word, but a praying word. It can flow from relief, but it’s something more. And it always begins with attentiveness. It can break through the surface as delight – sparks of pleasure, friendship, deep joy, or playfulness[v]. Richard Foster personifies it: “God laughs into our soul and our soul laughs back into God.”[vi] Gratitude’s posture is arms wide open, heart forward, face tilted up.[vii] Sometimes “exquisite delight can mingle with a painful yearning”.[viii]

Consider the ground you’ve traveled. For what or who have you felt gratitude welling up in your heart?  What does it feel like inside of you? sparks of pleasure, deep joy, playfulness, a wave of relief, a good belly laugh, something else?  Maybe begin with your body: open your arms wide so your heart expands, turn your face up. As you do, what or who or where comes to mind?  Gather these graces and pause to savor them.

Another grace: Compassion and Mercy – heart-felt responses to human need that flow from love within. This begins with what John of the Cross describes as “a secret and peaceful loving inflow of God.”[ix] Encounters with God’s love flow naturally inward and outward. That is what love does: It moves us. Yet this isn’t human achievement; It’s grace. As I genuinely receive love, I contain love and want to share it. This takes time. It’s slow. There is a time to receive and a time to give, and those don’t always overlap or come in quick succession. At least that’s been my experience.

When have you felt a secret and peaceful loving inflow of God? How has God loved you this year? Be as specific as you can. How is this love turning you towards or illuminating others? perhaps moving you toward others?  Jesuit Priest, Greg Boyle says “The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues but rather standing with Jesus in the right place…”[x]  What you see depends on where you stand. So where do you stand and with whom?[xi] Where is God stirring you to move closer? How is God helping you to see differently or deeper?  Gather these graces growing in you.

Peace is another grace. Richard Foster says that often, at the same time love grows, “in slips a peace that cannot be analyzed or dissected”[xii].  He helps us recognize it – as “quiet rest … (that is) not due to the absence of conflict or worry … but rather a Presence in it. This peace is interrupted often, by a multitude of distractions … (but in time and) with tending, its quiet way wins over the chatter and clatter of our noisy hearts.”[xiii]

How has God quieted your soul this year? When have you experienced moments of quiet rest even amidst conflict or worry? Maybe this Presence felt like steady hands on tight shoulders, a soft weight cupping your frazzled head, a deep breath, long exhale, gentle breeze, warm cup of tea, or something else?

Emptiness is a surprising grace. Richard Foster describes it as “intense longing, yearning, searching … (and maybe) incomplete finding”[xiv]. John of the Cross calls this “a living thirst … the urgent longing of love.”[xv] Foster helps us recognize and receive the grace of emptiness that sometimes shows up as darkness or dryness. It complements delight, like feasting and fasting. Our souls need both to grow.[xvi]

Can you sense emptiness within, something not yet filled? So often we want to rush and fix this because it’s uncomfortable. It’s hard to let be and wait on the slow work of God.  Can you simply name the empty places and longings? Here, at the end of the year, what is still unfinished, unformed? What are you hoping for?

And then there is the grace of Freedom. Again, the wisdom of Richard Foster informs us: As love intensifies, it becomes a steady flame. This “purifying fire” of God’s love can “burn out the dross in us” of stubbornness, judging, grasping, fear, and disordered attachments.[xvii] And I become freer. Kevin O’Brien S.J. recognizes: “Because I am human, I love the wrong things sometime. Or I love the right thing in the wrong way.”[xviii]

Where has God helped you see this and loosen your grip, open your hands, let go? Or where has God put a gentle finger upon a place you need to let go and trust God? Even the noticing before the release is grace. Name the places you are becoming a little more free. Name the places you want to become free-er still.

Spiritual Freedom leads to authenticity, “where what we do flows from the deepest sense of who we are”.[xix]  We practice authenticity through radical honesty, and by noticing and following Jesus in his freedom (through scripture), and sometimes by breaking open, or conversely, by celebrating?[xx]  Where have you practiced authenticity this year? Gather these into your bouquet of grace.

Though there are others, a last grace I’ll name is Hope. A close friend is releasing a book into the world this summer. It’s a beautiful story of hope in the midst of caring for her mom with Alzheimer’s. She recounts a place in this journey where her mom would refer to her as her sister, or her cousin, or her aunt. To which my friend writes, “No matter what (mom) called me, I could still feel her love and that became enough. It had to be. Enough, according to an old Buddhist proverb, is a feast. I just had to let go, a lot, which equaled a feast of peace, and there in that bountiful banquet of acceptance, life was beginning to carry me.”[xxi] This is hope. Hope is not optimism. Hope is not “It will be fine.” Hope takes reality seriously, finds enough, and anticipates good is coming.[xxii] And hope is grace.

Where have you encountered it this year- the generosity of enough and a current carrying you towards more life ahead?  When have you rested in enough?

This shift in seasons quietly asks for a pause – to name, gather, and savor the graces. It’s not about accumulating trinkets, amassing knowledge, or making lists, but noticing shifts in my soul and marking them as gifts. As I participate by gathering the graces God supplies, it extends the movement of grace, for that is its nature.

“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.” John 1:16

Grace upon grace is a current that flows under me, around me, within me.  Always unfinished, always more grace coming towards me, as I tend the garden of my soul with God.

So let me be the friend that encourages you at our year-end of new beginnings: Tend to the growing graces. Feed them this summer with silence, stillness, solitude, meditation. Listen to their invitations and respond. Enter further in – one step at a time. There will be more. Just wait and see.

“For do you not see how everything that happens keeps on being a beginning, and could it not be His beginning, since beginning is in itself always so beautiful.”  Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

My baby vegetables! Their smallness doesn’t disappoint; it excites me! And makes me reconsider how God feels about the small things growing in me. If you look closely, you can spot an out of focus ladybug. Another grace in the garden.

Questions for Reflection:

• As you look at your life, what graces from this year do you become aware of? Consider the questions included above. Is there one grace that draws you, or conversely frustrates or confuses you? Notice what your heart prays as you sit with the unfinished and incomplete in your life. Be curious as to what God could be inviting.

• Read slowly the poem, The Path, by Lynn Ungar.  What words or phrases stand out to you? What memories or emotions do they stir?  How does it inform your reflection on the year behind you? What invitations does it hold for you this summer?

The Path

Life, the saying goes, is a journey,
and who could argue with that?
We’ve all experienced the surprising turns,
the nearly-impassible swamp, the meadow
of flowers that turned out not to be quite
so blissful and benign as we first thought,
the crest of the hill where the road
smoothed out and sloped toward home.

Our job, we say, is to remain faithful
to the path before us. Which is an assumption
as common as it is absurd.
Really? Look ahead. What do you see?
If there is a path marked out in front of you
it was almost certainly laid down for someone else.

The path only unfolds behind us,
our steps themselves laying down the road.
You can look back and see the sign posts—
the ones you followed and the ones you missed—
but there are no markers for what lies ahead.

You can tell the story of how
you forded the stream or got lost
on the short cut that wasn’t,
how you trekked your way to courage or a heart,
but all of that comes after the fact.

There is no road ahead.
There is only the walking,
the tales we weave of our adventures,
and the songs we sing
to call our companions on.

By Lynn Ungar [xxiii]

[i] Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, p.3

[ii] Lynn Unger, The Path, https://lynnungar.com/poems/the-path/

[iii] Kevin O’Brien SJ, “The Art of Directing the Spiritual Exercises” lecture series, April 2024

[iv] I learned this from St. Ignatius of Loyola, who instructed his students at the end of a retreat to ask God “for the gift of an intimate knowledge of all the goods which God lovingly shares with me.”  David Fleming SJ, Draw Me Into Your Friendship, p. 175

[v] Kevin O’Brien SJ, “The Art of Directing the Spiritual Exercises” lecture series, April 2024

[vi] Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water, p.49-50.

[vii] Kevin O’Brien SJ, “The Art of Directing the Spiritual Exercises” lecture series, April 2024

[viii] Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water, p.50

[ix] Ibid, p.49

[x] Gregory Boyle, Tatoos on the Heart

[xi] Kevin O’Brien SJ, “The Art of Directing the Spiritual Exercises” lecture series, April 2024

[xii] Richard Foster, Streams, p. 49

[xiii] Ibid, p.49

[xiv] Ibid, p.50

[xv] Ibid, p.50

[xvi] Ibid, p.50

[xvii] Richard Foster, Streams, p.50

[xviii] Kevin O’Brien SJ, “The Art of Directing the Spiritual Exercises” lecture series, April 2024

[xix] Ibid

[xx] Ibid

[xxi] Marianne Benz, You Were Still Dancing.  Look for it here:  www.christmaslakecreative.com or on Amazon

[xxii] Kevin O’Brien SJ, “The Art of Directing the Spiritual Exercises” lecture series, April 2024.

[xxiii] https://lynnungar.com/poems/the-path/

The Path

A sun-speckled, winding road led to a sun-speckled, winding footpath. Our steps, softened by a pine needle carpet, brought us to our destination. It was simply and thoughtfully prepared. There’s not much you can add to a grove of live oaks at the edge of a swampy salt marsh, without overdoing it. The sun dipped low on the horizon. A breeze overhead ruffled the Spanish moss draped on long-armed trees. This was the most beautiful space for a wedding I’ve ever seen.

The bride and groom seemed at home in themselves and with each other. Their ease and warm hospitality was also beautiful. But there was something else I witnessed that weekend, even more beautiful to me.

The night before the wedding, the groom alluded, briefly and privately to me, of a struggle in his family. We shared the bond of a family grown and stretched by adoption. I sensed a rawness and weariness.  Without him saying much at all, I felt an overwhelm and isolation lying just beneath a beautiful surface. They were all there, dressed in their finest, smiling in the pictures, celebrating their son and his new wife as best they could. And I wondered, if in some ways, they were barely, silently holding it together.  Maybe that’s because of my history – where the surface is fragile, and I’m telling myself ‘It’s ok. I’m ok.’  But put a feather of stress on me and see what happens.

What stays with me from the weekend celebrations was the groom’s dance with his mom. He was a big boy, a grown boy, now a married man. Most of the dance his back was to me. It took her full stretched arms just to reach around his broad back. All I could see were her hands on his back. Her fingers spread. Every so often and ever so gently, patting, rubbing his back. Holding her son. Even now, as an adult. I saw in those hands a parent’s deep love and strong desire. The smallest gestures with the biggest feel. I felt it in my bones. It’s timeless. No matter their age, you want to hold them. You want to feel connected.

And sometimes they don’t let you. There are awkward years as kids pull away, moving toward independence. It’s normal. and Not. Easy. I don’t minimize that.

But these hands, that I couldn’t look away from, perhaps knew another kind of pain, another layer of grief, another category of loss and helplessness. I’m not comparing. I’m just saying- it’s unique. And I say this even though I don’t know her. I don’t know her details. Her details vary from my details. But I know something of the desire to connect and the pain that can come when that is refused. It’s a pain that can isolate, because it clouds one’s sense of self and purpose. It can chip away at well-being, healthy confidence, and other relationships.

This mothers’ hands mirrored back to me my desire for closeness, and my pain of rejection, of being misunderstood, and of not being able to bridge the immense gap of disconnection. I didn’t know that my desire to be a mom would come with all this pain. It made my desire feel dangerous, maybe misguided, or even wrong.

It’s only been recently that I’ve learned the important role of listening to my desires in the context of spiritual discernment. By discernment, I mean “wisdom that enables me to see and interpret the leading of the Holy Spirit.” [i] It differs from decision-making (which is largely a thinking-based consideration of choices). Discernment, in contrast, comes from our hearts. It’s about discovering the deepest desires of our hearts, those planted by God.

A retreat leader recently shared with me that only three questions are needed in places of discernment:

What do I want?

What do I really want? and …

What do I really, really want?  [ii]

This surprised me. I’d been taught not to trust my heart. But in the cautionary advice, I failed to even listen to my heart. I just stuffed all that mess in the caboose. Problem is, the caboose got heavier and heavier. Feelings don’t go away when I ignore them. They still influence me; I’m just less aware that they are.  A heavy caboose is train wreck waiting to happen!  Or it’s an inevitable break down. And while it’s unwise to immediately trust my feelings, it’s crucial to examine them, which is what these three questions invited.

I learned that the first question (What do I want?) will likely elicit fears and anxieties taking up space inside. (I want my son to not lose his job. I want him to stop self-harming. I want this new therapy to provide relief.)

The second question often touches the surface of life. Not necessarily superficial, but of a more practical nature. (I really want a vacation. I really want a quiet, peaceful day – a break from the tension. I really want to go hiking in the woods on a cool, fall day.)

This opens the way to the third question, peeling back another layer, reaching deeper desires, God-planted longings in my heart. (I really, really want to feel supported. I really, really want to know I’m not alone in this. I really, really want to show up as I am, as I am able, and be accepted. I really, really want to experience God’s presence where I am and feel completeness and contentment here. I really, really want my son to be whole.)

George Ashenbrenner, a priest and author says, “To discover what we deeply, truly desire forces us to wade into a swamp of needs, expectations, demands, casual wishes, moods, obligations, and much more. Your deepest, truest desire may coincide with one or another of these interior experiences but will always cut deeper into your heart than any of them.

True desire is fire in the heart.” [iii]

True desire is fire in my swampy heart.

That’s why the mother of the groom, dancing with her son, moved me so. Because what I sensed in her hands, the desire to hold, care, connect – touched the fire in my heart from which our adoption journey began. And I needed that jolt.  Because years of wear and tear and turmoil on every person and relationship in our home caused me to doubt and to wonder – What was I thinking when we chose to adopt?  Because the love we had to offer wasn’t enough and the therapies we invested in didn’t help, because extended family relationships started breaking down, I questioned –Did I hear God wrong on this?  Because I’d observe our son in our home and see how miserable he was, an accusing voice in my head taunted – Was it my American arrogance that thought he’d be better off with us?

But growing in discernment, I became aware – God isn’t asking these questions. In fact, as I stayed with this mother-son dancing-holding moment, I sensed God impressing upon me – You didn’t get this wrong. I want you, to please stop, analyzing and second-guessing. Stop tearing yourself down. You were following the desires of your heart and My heart. That place of discernment and invitation and your yes to Me is holy, sacred, and good.

Moreso, I sensed I wasn’t the only one to ever feel this way, to ever doubt myself. There are times we all need such a mirror, to look back and feel the fire in our hearts where a journey began. I can’t offer a magnifying glass that makes sense of it all. But a mirror, reflecting a holy fire in the deepest place of a heart.

Trevor Hudson, a South African Methodist pastor, often urges, “listen to the longings in your heart because your longings are your bus ticket home.  Let longings lead you. Let them inform your next step.” [iv]  With a fresh glimpse into the fire in my heart, I reflect on a season of discernment around adoption and know – I was listening to my deep longings. I can rest in this. And let it rest.

But discernment is not a one and done. Not a transaction. Not a checklist. Listening to our longings takes us on a journey. And this journey will always be some measure of incomplete and contain mystery that refuses to define the end of what should happen. It can be me, and others, the culture, and even the church that sometimes writes in quicker happily ever after stories. These are smaller stories. They are less, not more.

When I don’t trust God, I tell smaller stories – when I’m living in fear and want to hurry the story, or eaten by guilt and want to fix the story, or swallowed by doubts and want to run away from the story, or controlled by pride and think I know how this should go. All – smaller stories.

But walking by faith asks me to be open and free and continue to discern – because I don’t know where I’m going or what this is going to look like. God writes long stories, life-long stories. So discernment is always on-going, because the journey is continuing to unfold. This looks like staying in touch with my desires in the present moment.

Today – What do I want? What do I really want? What do I really, really want? becomes a path that leads me to God’s Spirit dwelling in my deepest longings.

And by this, God leads me home … home to purpose, home to contentment, home to freedom, home to God.

Your deep longings matter. They greatly matter. This isn’t sentimental, or even just compassionate. It’s actually very practical also: Your deepest longings matter because this is where you find God and this from where God leads.

Experience has taught me that it’s not just the destination that beautiful. Beauty and goodness are waiting to be found all along the winding path. They like to surprise me; They often inform me. I’m learning to become a noticer. Invariably, if I’m seeking God, the path will bring me to the edge of my swampy heart. It’s God’s favorite destination, but not always mine. And it’s always better exploring it with some company.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think that I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this

you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always

though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

― Thomas Merton [v]

This is a nearby path I walk with a friend.

We both get lost sometimes, disconnected from our deepest desires. Here, it’s safe to share a swampy heart.

As we walk, we often find our way again. We recognize the path with God as one of love.

It’s not achievement, not success, not perfection, not humankind’s approval that assures us we’re in the right place. It’s love – for myself, for God, and ultimately for others.

 Questions For Reflection…

1. Ask yourself, in the company of God – what do you desire? That first question. That first layer within. The one that likely connects with your fears and anxieties. Don’t second guess this. Don’t try to clean it up. Simply and honestly offer to God whatever comes up. God wants to hear all of it.

2. And now, the next question – What do you really want? Look again, within your swampy heart, and name these desires – the more practical things lying on the surface of your life. Place them before God in your mind’s eye.

3. Return once more to the question. Another layer deep. As you are able, begin to put your own words to your deepest longing.

   • What do you really, really want?

   • If this really is your bus ticket home, what do you want to do? (Your deepest internal longings will feel more like water hitting a sponge than water hitting a rock. … something you are drawn toward, not driven by, not forced or coerced. You’ll likely find a measure of peace, accompaniment, or resilience emerging.  This may not align with common sense or a big external sign or what others say or think. This will come from within you where God dwells.)

4. Our most authentic, deep desires always lead us out of ourselves – toward others, yes, and also laying down our many varieties of self … self-protection, self-image, self-reliance, self-promotion (while not neglecting self-care). As you offer your deepest desires to God, are there other desires you need to release?

5. Is there a situation/past decision where you are questioning yourself? What is causing you feel doubt? or fear? or guilt? or pride?  Where might you be hurrying, fixing, running away, or assuming you already know the answers?  What role has desire played in this situation? As you open this to God, is there something God wants to tell you or show you? Is there something God wants to give you – some gift of grace?

6. Where have you recently experienced beauty or goodness? How have they surprised you? How might they be informing you? Maybe experiment with becoming a Noticer of beauty and goodness in your day. Slowing down can help 😉

7. Who keeps you company in the swampy places? How do you make time for this?

8. Is there a word or phrase from Thomas Merton’s prayer that stays with you? that resonates? or disturbs you? Pause to share that with God, along with any questions or feelings that come with it. Allow space for God to respond to you. Let a conversation begin.

Juli Able

[i] Father Jim Manny, S.J.

[ii] Father Jim Fleming, “Discerning Great Desires in Ignatian Prayer, Ignatius House Retreat Center, Atlanta, GA, May 2, 2023

[iii] George Aschenbrenner, S.J., “Stretched for Greater Glory”, 2004=

[iv] Trevor Hudson, “God and You: A Preached Retreat with Ignatian Flavor”, The Wings Center at Eagle Ranch, Sept 25-28, 2022

[v] Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”, 1958.

The Beauty of Sea Glass

“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth.” Isaiah 45:2

Jon asked me the other day why I enjoyed looking for sea glass along the rocky coast of Montecito, California or in Rockport, Massachusetts. I tell him it is like looking for hidden treasure. 

I can get lost in it for hours, (just ask Jon), searching and collecting. I crawl in rocky caves, move large rocks, look between boulders and dig under the sand. It is exciting, as you never know what you are going to find… the stem of a wine glass, a rare blue piece, a marble, the bottom of a beer bottle or just lots and lots of white, green and brown pieces.

Sea glass starts as bottles and other glass items… junk, trash. It also comes from tragedies like shipwrecks. The glass is tossed on the shore, broken and then tumbled smooth by the waves and currents of the sea. It can take up to 10 years in a constant ocean environment for broken glass to become sea glass. A perfect piece of sea glass has no shiny spots, is well frosted and has smooth edges, edges all beautifully softened, smoothed and worn by the continuous tossing of the ocean's waves against the harshness of the rocks and sand. 

It takes years for the jagged, junk glass to become beautiful and cloudy. It is not a one-time toss or an instantaneous event. The ocean takes the garbage thrown into it by humans and turns it into something beautiful and worthy. 

And isn’t that what God’s love does to us? As we are tossed by the storms of life, His loving presence with us softens our hearts, smoothes away our jagged edges, and makes us beautiful in His sight. God turns our junk and our tragedy into beauty. And as we age our cloudiness becomes even more beautiful. 

This is why I love looking for sea glass.

Grace & Peace,
Brenda Golden

January 29, 2016

Lessons From the Stars

Just as the lights of the city keep me from seeing all of the stars that are actually there, the noise around me and in me keeps me from hearing God as he whispers His personal message to me continually.

I was in Buena Vista Colorado last week. Buena Vista is a town of around 2,000 people with only one stop light. When I first visited there 40 years ago that was the case and it is still the same today.  Actually I was a few miles above the town on the edge of a mountain where there were few houses and no bright lights. I was at over 8,000 feet in altitude and the air is thinner as well. The first night of the visit I was outside with our host and he suggested I look up. The only way to describe what I saw was that it was awe-inspiring. It almost took my breath away. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and being in the countryside away from the lights of civilization there were tens of thousands of stars visible. I could see the outline of the Milky Way. The sky was much brighter than usual and only due to the sheer number of the stars visible. The ground itself seemed to be lit by the light of the stars alone. My host made the comment that “you don’t see that in Atlanta” and he was right.

In Atlanta there are only a fraction of the stars I saw that night. As I leave the house in the morning I often look up at the sky and thank God for “showing off.” The magnitude of difference in the Colorado night is impossible to describe. This morning as I got into my truck at 5:30 and looked at the stars I realized that I was only seeing a fraction of reality. There are more stars there than I can see or even imagine. The difference is that the lights of my subdivision and the city of Gainesville and even distant Atlanta overpower the light of the distant stars. The reality is still the reality. The stars haven’t moved or gone away. I just can’t see them because of distraction created by other lights. I have to go to a different place to see clearly.

Hearing the voice of God is a lot like that. Just as the lights of the city keep me from seeing all of the stars that are actually there, the noise around me and in me keeps me from hearing God as he whispers His personal message to me continually. As moving into the sparsely populated area of Colorado enables me to see stars I didn’t realize existed, so moving into solitude (simply being by myself) and silence allows me to be in position to hear God speak. As I have to look up to see the stars, I have to look in to hear the voice of God. As the stars take my breath away, the Presence of the God Who created each one and calls them by name changes my life as I allow Him to whisper to me in solitude and silence. As the stars are seen best in the darkness of the less populated areas, so the witness of the saints is that God is often best heard in solitude and silence. Solitude was practiced by Jesus, who often left his disciples to go to be alone with His Father. It has been practiced and proven by His followers through the centuries.

Just as men and women have looked to the stars for a glimpse of the work of the Creator, I move to solitude to hear His gentle whisper to me.

- Dick Baxter

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.”

(Psalm 19:1-4a NIV - Italics added)

A Shelf of Spiral Notebooks

“What are the things that you and God enjoy doing together?”

I was recently talking with a friend who didn’t feel close to God at the time and I felt led to ask that question. After our time was over I asked myself the same question, “When do I feel closest to God?” For me, the immediate answer was "solitude and silence."

As I look back over my life, I have been gently drawn to being alone with my thoughts and prayers. I have particularly enjoyed the thoughts that being in the mountains or at the ocean seemed to bring forth. Everyone, however, is different, and what is special for one is not special for others. For some the feeling is in church, others when helping the homeless, others when having a “quiet time,” others when reading and meditating on scripture, praying, or being in a small group. I know people who are most sensitive to God when fasting. I have a friend who meets God in biographies of those who have gone before.

For each of us there are valuable avenues of communication that God utilizes in His unique relationship with us. The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is: “What is the chief end of man?” The answer is “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The enjoyment of being with God is what we tragically often miss. We talk about a personal relationship with Christ, but if we are honest, the personal is often missing. Our communication can be very mechanical and rigid. We don’t look forward to spending time with God. We do it because we have been told it is important, or we don’t do it at all. Often our excuse is that we are just too busy, sometimes even doing God’s work!

That was my situation when I was on the Young Life staff some 40 years ago. I was in ministry working with high school kids, loved it and felt God’s presence as I ministered. Personally, though, I had a very unrewarding devotional life and that made it hard for me to maintain my “quiet time” with God. Knowing that I should be doing more would activate my guilt response and I would buy a new spiral notebook for my prayer list (I have a whole stack of partially filled notebooks in my closet today). I would begin reading 5 chapters in the Bible, praying daily for others and myself, while I kept a list of what I had asked God to bring about. After a few weeks or maybe even a month of being faithful to the process, I would quit. Once I had missed a day or two, it became hard to get started again. The pile of notebooks with empty pages grew, but my devotional life did not. It was like a dance of drawing closer and withdrawing. While there were moments of enjoyment, they were not frequent enough to keep me engaged on a regular basis. While I believed intellectually that God was present, that somehow was not enough. The belief was in my head, but it wasn’t confirmed by my experience or felt in my heart. 

Later in life, God, in His grace, drew me from my monologue to a dialogue. God used writings by some of the devotional masters to gently provide a vision that was more available. God used that new vision to open new doors. I discovered that solitude and silence could be a time of enjoyment with God and I began to look forward to those times. In silence, I moved from my head to my heart. I found that as I spent time simply alone and quiet that small clarifications would appear into my mind that gave me greater understanding of God and His action in my life. I came to recognize the Presence and action of God in small things in my day. As a Young Life motor coach driver, I had enjoyed driving all night while the kids slept. Looking at the stars through that big windshield brought a sense of gratitude. Now I knew why. Growing up, I always enjoyed a time of silent prayer during the evening service at my church. God had been drawing me to solitude for years.

The reality I experienced, as I began to carve space for solitude, was that God wanted to communicate with me, not just listen to my requests. He wanted more than my monologue. Scripture took on new depth and became a means of His communication as I moved from scripture reading to scripture meditation. It became a place where I listened to God speak into my heart. For me, solitude has become the place where I can hear God’s whispers in my life as I turn away from the external and internal noise that often drowns Him out. In addition, it changes the pace of my life as I spend unhurried time with God and sense His calm, slow Presence. 

So, what is it that you enjoy doing with God? If you don’t know, maybe you should try solitude! Dallas Willard has defined joy as a “a pervasive and constant sense of well-being.” That is why joy and suffering can exist at the same time. Solitude may be the road to experience that joy. I pray that you may find that joy in your walk with God in whatever path He leads you.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” 

 I Corinthians 2:9b

“The eye cannot see, nor the tongue tell, nor can the heart imagine how many paths and methods I have, solely for love to lead them back to grace so that my truth may be realized in them.”   

Catherine of Siena