Nikos Kazantzakis once suggested that there are three kinds of souls and three kinds of prayers:

·        I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me, lest I rot.

·        Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break.

·        Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!

When I look at life, I also see three great struggles, not unlike those so poetically named by Kazantzakis. And each of these has a corresponding level of Christian discipleship.  What are those great struggles and those levels of discipleship?  There are three major phases in our human and spiritual journey:

·        Essential discipleship – The struggle to get our lives together.

·        Generative discipleship – The struggle to give our lives away

·        Radical discipleship – The struggle to give our deaths away

Essential discipleship and the struggle to get our lives together is our initial task in life. Beginning with our first breath, we struggle to find an identity and to find fulfillment and peace there. We are born in a hospital and soon taken home to where we have parents, a family, and a place that’s ours. This period of our lives, childhood, is intended by God and nature to be a secure time. As a child, our major struggles have not yet begun. But that will change dramatically at puberty.

Simply put, puberty is designed by God and nature to drive us out of our homes in search of a home that we ourselves build. And it generally does its job well! It hits us with a tumult and violence that overthrows our childhood and sends us out, restless, sexually-driven, full of grandiose dreams, but confused and insecure, in search of a new home, one that we build for ourselves. This struggle, from being restlessly driven out of our first home to finding a place to call home again, is the journey of Essential discipleship.

Normally we do find our way home again. At a certain point, we land. We find ourselves “at home” again, namely, with a place to live that’s our own, a job, a career, a vocation, a spouse, children, a mortgage, a series of responsibilities, and a certain status and identity.  At that point, the fundamental struggle in our life changes, though it may take years for us to consciously realize and accept this. Our question then is no longer: “How do I get my life together?” Rather it becomes: ‘How do I give my life away more deeply, more generously, and more meaningfully?” At that stage, we enter the second phase of discipleship.

Generative discipleship and the struggle to give our lives away is a stage most people reach sometime during their twenties or thirties, though some take longer to cross that threshold. Moreover, the crossover is never pure and complete, the struggle for self-identity and private fulfillment never completely goes away; but, at a certain point, we begin to live more for others than for ourselves.  Generative discipleship begins then and, for most of us, this will constitute the longest period of our lives. During all those years, our task in life is clear: How do I give my life away more purely, more generously, more generatively?

But being the responsible adults who run the homes, schools, churches, and businesses of the world is not the final stage our lives. We still must die; the most daunting task of all. And so our default line must shift yet one more time: There comes a point in our lives, when our real question is no longer: ‘What can I still do so that my life makes a contribution?’ Rather the question becomes: ‘How can I now live so that my death will be an optimal blessing for my family, my church, and the world?’

Radical discipleship and the struggle to give our deaths away is the final stage of life: As Christians, we believe that Jesus lived for us and that he died for us, that he gave us both his life and his death. But we often fail to distinguish that there are two clear and separate movements here: Jesus gave his life for us in one movement, and he gave his death for us in another. He gave his life for us through his activity, through his generative actions for us; and he gave his death through his passivity, through absorbing in love the helplessness, diminutions, humiliations, and loneliness of dying. 

Like Jesus, we too are meant to give our lives away in generosity and selflessness, but we are also meant to leave this planet in such a way that our diminishment and death is our final, and perhaps greatest, gift to the world. Needless to say that’s not easy. Walking in discipleship behind the master will require that we too will eventually sweat blood and feel “a stone’s throw” from everybody. This struggle, to give our deaths away, as we once gave our lives away, constitutes Radical discipleship.

When we look at the demands of discipleship, we see that one size does not fit all!

There’s a well-known axiom that I will phrase more delicately than its usual expression. It goes this way:  Every time you tell yourself that you should do something, you pay a bad price. The insinuation is that we are forever mistaking the voice of neurosis for the voice of conscience and putting ourselves under false obligations that rob us of both of freedom and maturity.

Is that true? Yes and no. The axiom sounds cleverer than it is. It says that there should not be any shoulds in our lives; but that statement is self-contradictory. 

Still it needs to be given its due. There’s wisdom in its instinct, even if it is expressed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It has this positive challenge: 

Many times when we feel a nagging obligation inside (“I must do this! I should do that!”) the imperative is not coming from God or truth but from some other voice that is being falsely heard as the voice of God. Put more technically, most of the voices we hear inside that demand that we do something are psychological and emotional rather than moral or religious. They don’t tell us what’s right or wrong, or what God wants of us, they only tell us how we feel about certain things. For example: a feeling of guilt does not indicate that we did something wrong, it only tells how we feel about what we did, and that feeling can be healthy or unhealthy. Perhaps we didn’t do anything wrong at all, but are only wounded and neurotic.  Sorrow and contrition are better indicators of morality than any feeling of guilt.

So where do these feelings of obligation and guilt come from? They come from nature and nurture, from genetics and socialization, from our unconscious and from our wounds. Freudians, Jungians, and Hillmanians offer different explanations, but they all agree on the main thing, that is, many of the voices inside of us that speak of right and wrong and demand that we do this or that are not moral or religious voices at all. They may well have important things to teach us but, if we take them as the voice of God and morality, we will end up acting out of something other than God and conscience. Many of the ‘shoulds’ we feel inside of us are not the voice of conscience at all. 

But, with that being said, some important qualifications need to be added: Simply put, sometimes the voice of obligation that we feel inside is profoundly moral and religious, God’s voice. False voices speak inside but so too do true ones.  C.S. Lewis, for example, in describing his own conversion, shares how he didn’t want to become a Christian but something inside of him told him that he had to become one. Despite being “the most reluctant convert in the history of Christendom”, at a point in his life, he came to realize “that God’s compulsion” was his liberation. He became a Christian because, paradoxically, in a moment of genuine freedom, he came to know he had no other choice existentially except to surrender himself to something, God’s compulsion, which presented itself to him as an obligation. 

“God’s compulsion” is precisely a deep and authentic ‘should’ inside us, and the great paradox is that when we submit to it we become freer and more mature. It’s also what brings joy into our lives. It’s no accident that the book in which Lewis describes this experience is called, Surprised by Joy. 

There’s a great paradox at the heart of life that’s hard to accept, namely, that freedom lies in obedience, maturity lies in surrender, and joy lies in accepting duty and obligation. Jesus clearly taught and embodied this paradox: He was the freest human person to ever walk this planet, yet he insisted constantly that he did nothing on his own, that everything he did was in obedience to his Father. He was the paradigm of human maturity, even as his life was one within which he habitually surrendered his own will. And he was free of all false religion, false morality, and false guilt, even as he constantly drew upon moral and religious imperatives deep inside of his own soul and inside of his own religious tradition.

Simone Weil, that extraordinary philosopher and mystic who guarded her freedom so deeply that, despite her belief in the truth of Christ, she resisted baptism because she wasn’t sure that the visible church on earth merited this kind of trust, was, despite fierce instinctual resistance, clear that what she ultimately wanted and needed was to be obedient. We spend our whole lives, she once stated, searching for someone or something to be obedient to because unless we give ourselves over in obedience to something greater than ourselves, we inflate and grow silly – even to ourselves. She’s right. 

We need to stop obeying false voices inside of us. Neurosis is not to be confused with conscience. But, that being admitted, there are some ‘shoulds” that we should do! 

Last year a French movie was released entitled, “Of Gods and Men” that was described by the New York Times as “perhaps the best movie on Christian commitment ever made.” 

Based on a true story it tells how, in 1996, an Islamic terrorist group kidnapped a small community of Trappist monks from their remote monastery in Northern Algeria, held them, and eventually killed them. But the movie is about something deeper than these bare facts.  It focuses on how each of the monks, ordinary men with no ambitions for martyrdom, had to accept possible martyrdom. Each had his own struggle, and for several of them it was a mammoth one. The film climaxes with a “Last Supper” scene where the camera locks-in on the face of each monk. Each face manifests both joy and agony in that man’s unconscious realization that he is soon to die and yet how, because of what he has already worked through and accepted within his soul, that death will be a triumph.

At one point in the story, just as it was becoming clear to the monks that the political and military violence surrounding them would at some point invade their monastic enclosure, the movie presents us with a very poignant scene, Military helicopters hover over their little village and their monastery, with their propellers sounding ominously like war-drums. As this war-beat drowns out most every sound, the monks respond by going to their chapel, putting on their monastic robes, linking arms and chanting gentle songs of trust and praise to God, and we are left staring at the contrast: gentle songs of trust in the face of hovering military hardware. Which of these is more powerful? 

That scene is paralleled in the Gospels when they describe the birth of Jesus: A world filled with violence, under the hard military fist of the Roman Empire, is looking for an answer from above. And what is God’s response: A helpless baby asleep in the straw. How will this baby ultimately triumph? How do gentleness and meekness inherit the earth? 

This may strain the logic somewhat, but Jesus hints at an answer to that question in his response to his disciples when they ask why they do not have the power to cast out certain demons, when Jesus can cast them out. Jesus’ answer is metaphorical but deep. He replies, in essence, that “demons” are cast out not through a superior cultic power, but through a superior moral power, namely, by the power that is created inside someone when he or she sufficiently nurtures a deep private integrity, graciousness, love, innocence, and gentleness, and holds these in fidelity in the face of all temptation, including violence.  Nurturing these things inside oneself connects a person to the ultimate source of all Being, the Ultimate Power, the power that Jesus called his “Father”.  And this power, and this power alone, ultimately stands; everything else, including the most sophisticated military hardware eventually gives way to age, rust, obsolescence, and death. The helicopters that hovered above those chanting monks now lie in junkyards, the monks’ chant goes on.

That isn’t easy to accept. The perennial temptation is to try to defeat violence with a morally superior violence, the kind we see at the end of cathartic movie where the hero outguns the bad guys by displaying more muscle, firepower, and accuracy than they did. The demon is then cast out by a superior violence. But that is not the way of Jesus or of the Gospels; nor was it the way of those martyred Trappist monks in Algeria. 

In the face of impending violence, our first action should not be an attempt to marshal a superior violence. No. Like those martyred monks, we are meant to link arms and sing songs of love and trust. Or, to vary the image, like the three young men in the Book of Daniel, we are meant to sing sacred songs, even as we are walking amid flames seven times hotter than usual.

To accept this response to violence does not, in se, rule out the possibility of morally justified self-defense or the possibility of a just-war. The world is complex, morality is complex, and we are not always at the same place within our lives, within our faith, and within our trust in God. One size doesn’t fit all. And, in “Of Gods and Men”, each monk had to make his own agonizing decision apposite to meeting violence. So too for each of us. 

This is not a criterion for all moral decisions about self-defense and war (though, irrespective of circumstance, we should ever live with the maxim that violence always begets more violence) but an invitation, an invitation to begin more to cultivate within ourselves the kind of “prayer and fasting” that casts out all demons, including violence. The invitation is to begin to nurture within a deep private integrity, graciousness, love, innocence, and gentleness, and hold these in fidelity in the face of all temptation, including violence.

If only! How often we feel those bitter words of regret: If only! If only I had noticed earlier! If only I had been more attentive! If only I could see that person again, even for five minutes! If only I hadn’t been there just then! If only the storm hadn’t happened just as I was on the highway! If only I hadn’t had that extra drink! If only I had left the party ten minutes earlier! If only! 

We all live with certain regrets and the bitter knowledge that if only we had been more attentive or patient or courageous or loving at a given moment our lives would now be very different. If only we could have certain moments of our lives back, to do over differently. 

I had such one such moment recently. It wasn’t one that in the grand scheme of things was very huge, but it did in its own small way contain all the dynamics of the bitter regret that we feel when we say: If only!

What happened? I had my briefcase (containing passport, Green-Card, laptop, 2 years of personal diaries and planned agendas, and numerous other personal papers and photos) stolen from me as I was buying a subway ticket in the London Underground. I’m an experienced traveler and tend to be paranoid in terms of keeping vigilance on my luggage but, as anyone who has ever lost a purse or a briefcase (or, infinitely more tragic, a child) in a public place knows, it only takes a few seconds of inattention for disaster to strike. 

In my case, it happened this way: I had just got off a train after speaking at a conference and, shepherding three pieces of luggage, made my way down an escalator to the Underground. I was trying to purchase a ticket for the subway and the self-service machine was not being particularly cooperative and that little distraction, for a period of perhaps one minute, was all it took: I briefly forgot about my luggage. When I looked down to pick it up, my briefcase was gone. It took an instant to realize what had happened and as I ran to get a security guard my heart sank in the sick recognition that it was too late, I would never see the contents of that briefcase again. As I sat with the police, making a report of the incident, I kept involuntarily repeating to myself: If only! If only I hadn’t lost my concentration! If only I had kept my passport and green-card on my person! If only I could rewind the last ten minutes of my life! If only! 

We’ve all been there, in ways big and small!

What’s the lesson? What might I – or anyone else – learn from moments like these?

First of all, we need to learn to keep things in perspective.  Sometimes a moment of carelessness has huge, irrevocable consequences, as in the loss of a child or a serious accident that causes a death; but for me it meant only the loss of some personal effects, some money, and the loss of the better part of two days (spent in Embassies recouping my passport and Green-card). It was an irritating inconvenience which in the grand scheme of things is, in essence, a mosquito-bite. When I come to die, I doubt this incident will be remembered. But that isn’t easy to see at the time. In the moment it’s easy to lose perspective. 

Second, incidents like this are meant to teach patience. Haste makes waste! It also makes for momentary carelessness and accidents. This happened to me because I was in a hurry.  I had wanted to buy my ticket at the customer-counter, but there was a line-up and, although I had no pressing agenda, I was too impatient to wait in the line-up. I was trying to save five minutes and that impatience ended up costing me, among other things, the better part of two days of lining up at Embassies and Immigration offices. Hopefully the lesson will be learned. 

Finally, incidents like this are meant to teach us to recognize and forgive contingency. Philosophically, contingency means that, unlike God who is self-sufficient and perfect, we live with limit and imperfection. For us, every one of us, there will be moments of inattention, carelessness, accidents, stupid impatience, and moral lapses. The philosopher, Leibnitz, famously stated that we don’t live in the best of all possible universes.

Thus, there will always be lost purses, stolen briefcases, broken heirlooms, and, much worse, tragic accidents that result in lost children and lost lives. Sometimes too there will be moments of moral carelessness that we will also bitterly regret. We aren’t God. We’re contingent. 

So the next time someone accidently drops and breaks your priceless vase, don’t respond with that chastising frown that says: How can you be so clumsy! What an awful thing you’ve done! Instead, make old Leibnitz proud, give off a knowing smile that says:  Now there’s contingency for you! 

It’s not easy to discern the voice of truth among the many voices that beckon us. Indeed it is difficult even to discern when we are genuinely sincere: Who am I really? What is in my genuine best-interest? Among the many voices I hear which voice will ultimately bring me life? Which is the voice of God in my life?

Countless voices assail us constantly from without: billboards, television, newspapers, magazines, the internet, ideologies, religion, the arts, pop culture, fashion, hype, the lure of celebrity, among others. But it is usually not difficult for us to recognize that we are in fact being assailed by these voices for they make little pretense. Each has an angle: they want our money, our vote, our support, our sympathy, our allegiance, our attention, our participation, our admiration, or something from us.  Subtlety is not their virtue and we are generally not so naïve as to think they have our best interests at heart; though in some cases, like religion, the arts and fashion, their best expressions are for our benefit.  But we are not so easily taken in by outside voices.

Where we more naïve is with voices that beckon and make truth claims from within. Because these voices are inside us it is natural to believe that they have our best interests at heart, that they speak for us, that they are the voice of truth.

 What are these voices that assail us from within, just as do the many voices from without? Here are a few salient examples:

·       The voice of personal grandiosity, ego, self-interest, and laziness. We are not altruistic by nature. Thanks to our natural instincts, we are come into this world instinctually prideful, self-centered, narcissistic, and concerned first of all with our own well-being, pleasure, and comfort.  As we grow into maturity we learn that the voice of self-interest is not exactly the voice that calls us to life; but, this side of eternity, that voice never dies and remains inside us always as a voice that is ready to undermine all other voices.

·       The voice of wound and rage. Nobody comes to adulthood whole. It is not a question of whether we are wounded but only a question of the what and the where of our wounds. And the voice of wound is speaking always, subtly and not so subtly, inside us, calling us to feel distrustful, slighted, offended, angry, and vengeful. Nobody is immune. This voice is forever telling us that paranoia, not metanoia, is what leads us to life.

·        The voice of emotional and psychological depression. Depression easily disguises itself as depth, as altruism, as holiness, and hence it can fool us by having us believe that this heaviness of spirit is life-giving when, in fact, it is draining our bodies and souls of oxygen and life. The voice of depression is very often confused with the voice of religion because it appears to honor asceticism, other-worldliness, and the cross when, in fact, it doesn’t.

·       The voice of sentimentality and piety. Sentimentality and piety are very easily mistaken for genuine empathy and genuine devotion. But there is a not-so-subtle difference: In genuine empathy and genuine devotion, the tears we cry are for others, in sentimentality and piety the tears we shed are for ourselves.

·       The voice of obsession, of inner “angels” and “demons”. There is a long-standing argument as to what ultimately most influences our behavior: nature or nurture? Genetics or environment? A number of thinkers, including James Hillman, would suggest that what most influences our behavior is neither nature nor nurture, but certain “daimons” within, namely, various “angels” and “demons” inside that assail us, trigger obsessions, and rob us of freedom. Anyone who has ever fallen helplessly and hopelessly in love will recognize exactly what a “demon” or “angel” inside can do. There are few more paralyzing forces in our lives and there are few voices that can so deeply make us believe that a certain person (and only this person) can bring us life. If you are a romantic, this voice will be both the biggest source of energy and the biggest source of grief in your life; and, as bitter experience has shown, it isn’t always the voice of life.

·       The voice of archetype, genetics, ethnicity, and gender. Blood is thicker than water and it is also a very powerful voice inside us that is never fully silent. We do not come into this world as unused photographic paper onto which nothing has yet been imprinted. Rather we enter this life with a powerful DNA, inside both our bodies and souls, within which many things are already indelibly stamped. Our DNA, physical and psychological, remains always a powerful voice inside us and, like the voice of personal grandiosity, it doesn’t always have our ultimate best interests at heart.

There are no easy answers apposite to dealing with these voices inside us, but, to quote James Hillman, a symptom suffers most when it doesn’t know where it belongs!

Eight hundred years ago, the poet, Rumi wrote: What I want is to leap out of this personality and then sit apart from that leaping. I’ve lived too long where I can be reached.

Isn’t that true for all of us, especially today!  Our lives are often like over-packed suitcases. It seems like we are always busy, always over-pressured, always one phone call, one text message, one email, one visit, and one task behind. We are forever anxious about what we have still left undone, about whom we have disappointed, about unmet expectations.

Moreover, inside of all of that, we can forever be reached. We have no quiet island to escape to, no haven of solitude. We can always be reached. Half the world has our contact numbers and we feel pressure to be available all the time. So we often feel as if we are on a treadmill from which we would want to step off. And within all that busyness, pressure, noise, and tiredness we long for solitude, long for some quiet, peaceful island where all the pressure and noise will stop and we can sit in simple rest.

That’s a healthy yearning. It’s our soul speaking. Like our bodies, our souls too keep trying to tell us what they need. They need solitude. But solitude isn’t easy to find. Why?

Solitude is an elusive thing that needs to find us rather than us finding it. We tend to picture solitude in a naïve way as something that we can “soak ourselves in” as we would soak ourselves in a warm bath. We tend to picture solitude this way: We are busy, pressured, and tired. We finally have a chance to slip away for a weekend. We rent a cabin, complete with a fireplace, in a secluded woods. We pack some food, some wine, and some soft music and we resist packing any phones, iPads, or laptops. This is to be a quiet weekend, a time to drink wine by the fireplace and listen to the birds sing, a time of solitude.

But solitude cannot be so easily programmed. We can set up all the optimum conditions for it, but that is no guarantee we will find it. It has to find us, or, more accurately, a certain something inside of us has to be awake to its presence. Let me share a personal experience:

Several years ago, when I was still teaching theology at a college, I made arrangements to spend two months in summer living at a Trappist monastery. I was seeking solitude, seeking to slow down my life. I had just finished a very-pressured semester, teaching, doing formation work, giving talks and workshops, and trying to do some writing. I had a near-delicious fantasy of what was to meet me at the monastery. I would have two wonderful months of solitude: I would light the fireplace in the guesthouse and sit quietly by it. I would take a quiet walk in the woods behind the monastery. I would sit on an outdoor rocking chair by a little lake on the property and smoke my pipe. I would enjoy wholesome food, eating in silence as I listened to a monk reading aloud from a spiritual book, and, best of all, I would join the monks for their prayers – singing the office in choir, celebrating the Eucharist, and sitting in quiet meditation with them in their stillness chapel.

I arrived at the monastery at mid-afternoon, hastily unpacked, and set about immediately to do these things. By late evening I had mowed them all down, like a lawn that had been waiting to be cut: I had lit the fire and sat by it. I had taken a walk in the woods, smoked my pipe on the rocking chair by lake, joined the monks in choir for vespers, sat in meditation with them afterwards for a half an hour, ate a wholesome supper in silence, and then joined them again for sung compline. By bedtime the first evening I had already done all the things I had fantasized would bring me solitude and I went to bed restless, anxious about how I would survive the next two months without television, newspapers, phone calls, socializing with friends, and my regular work to distract me. I had done all the right solitude activities and had not found solitude, but had found restlessness instead. It took several weeks before my body and mind slowed down enough for me to find a basic restfulness, before I could even begin to nibble at the edges of solitude.

Solitude is not something we turn on like a water faucet. It needs a body and mind slowed down enough to be attentive to the present moment. We are in solitude when, as Merton says, we fully taste the water we are drinking, feel the warmth of our blankets, and are restful enough to be content inside our own skin. We don’t often accomplish this, despite sincere effort, but we need to keep making new beginnings.

Each year we celebrate “Father’s Day”, a day on which we’re asked to get in touch with the gratitude we should feel towards our own fathers. For some of us this is easy, we had good fathers; but for many it’s difficult: How do you feel gratitude if your father was someone who was mostly absent or abusive?

Sadly, our world has too many absent and abusive fathers. Because of this, many of us go through life struggling, however unconsciously, with the capacity to find a healthy balance between freedom and discipline in our lives. Instead we are forever vacillating between being too hard on ourselves or too easy on ourselves. Moreover, if we had an absent or abusive father, we tend to go through life always unconsciously seeking something that has been withheld from us, namely, our father’s approval. This leaves us inhibited, often angry, and hungering for a father.  

Father-hunger, the hunger to be affirmed and blessed by our own fathers or by someone who represents him, is today perhaps the deepest hunger in the world, especially among men. Not enough people have been affirmed and blessed by their own fathers or the father figures in their lives.

What is a father? Anthropologists tell us that the archetypal father is meant to have these qualities: He is meant to order, carry, feed, and bless his family.  What does this entail?

First of all, he is meant to be a principle of order rather than disorder. A good father lives in such a way that his family feels safe and secure when he’s around. A bad father, through absence, non-reliability, or by being abusive, makes the family feel unsafe. For example, we see how a father can be a principle of disorder in a situation where he is unfaithful, is an alcoholic, or is nursing some other addiction. His behavior then will be unpredictable and his children will be forever guessing as to whether he will come home or not – and what kind of mood he will be in if he does come home. Slowly the unpredictability will wear on his children to the point where they will feel their father as a principle of disorder, of chaos. Conversely, a good father, even if his family considers him boring and unexciting, will make his family feel safe and secure.

Next, a good father carries his family rather than asks them to carry him. A good father is an adult, an elder, not a fellow-sibling or a child (in his behavior) forever demanding that the family carry him. A good father does not make his own problems and concerns, his own tiredness and heartaches, the center of family’s attention. Rather he relates beyond his own tiredness and heartaches so as to make the focus of attention the heartaches and headaches of his family.

Beyond this, a good father feeds his family rather than feeds off of them. A good father does not demand, however subtly and unconsciously, that his children bring meaning, satisfaction, and glory into his own life. Rather he is more concerned that his children and his family find meaning, satisfaction, and happiness in their own lives. Good parents feed their children; bad parents feed off of them.

Finally, a good father affirms and admires his children rather than demand that they affirm and admire him. A good father expresses to his children his pride in them as opposed to being threatened by their talents and achievements. He doesn’t demand that his children express their pride in him. Daniel Berrigan, in a mature autobiography written late in his life, shares how he had to struggle with various issues his entire life, particularly with authority, because of the absence of a blessing from his own father. He shares, for example, how he would be afraid to share with his father the good news that he had just published a book because he feared his father’s jealousy. After sharing this, he asks his readers: Is it any wonder that he has been leery and suspicious of every authority figure during his entire adult life? The absence of a father’s blessing leaves us with a constriction of the heart.

Perhaps an image can be helpful here: When a cow gives birth, her calf comes out of her womb severely constricted, rigid, bound-up in a glue-like afterbirth. But nature has taken this into account and given the mother the proper instinct. She immediately turns round and licks that constriction off her calf. A soon as she’s finished, the calf stands up, tests its legs, and begins to walk on its own.

As humans, we are born into the same condition. We also come into this life constricted, except that for us this isn’t so much a physical thing. It’s a much deeper and more complex constriction – and our parents are meant to remove it by ordering, carrying, feeding, and blessing us. No father does this perfectly, but if your father did it even half-adequately, express your gratitude and count our blessings!

A friend of mine jokingly says that when she dies she wants this epitaph on her gravestone: There was always something!

And there always is! All of us appreciate her frustration. Invariably, there’s always something, big or small, that casts a shadow and somehow keeps us from fully entering the present moment and appreciating its richness. There is always some anxiety, some worry about something that we should have done or should be doing, some unpaid bill, some concern about what we need to face tomorrow, some lingering heartache, some concern about our health or the health of another, some hurt that is still burning, or some longing for someone who is absent that mitigates our joy. There’s always something, some loss, some hurt, some anxiety, some bitterness, some jealousy, some obsession, or some headache, that is forever draining the present moment of its joy.

Henri Nouwen once gave a very simple, poignant expression to this: “Our life,” he writes. “is a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness.  In every friendship, there is distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness.”  There’s always something!

Jesus had his own way of expressing this. There is an incident recorded in the Gospels wherein Peter approaches Jesus and asks him what reward a disciple will receive for following him. Jesus replies that anyone who gives up father, mother, spouse, children, house, or land in order to be his disciple will receive these back (mothers, spouses, children, houses, lands) one hundred times over. But then he adds a rather unwelcome clause: “though not without tribulation”. There will always be something – some stress, some jealousy, some persecution – which can wipe out both the recognition and the enjoyment of the hundredfold. In effect, what Jesus is saying is that we can have everything – and enjoy nothing! Why? Because there will always be something impaling itself into the present moment that can cause us to lose perspective and thus lose the richness and joy inside of our own lives.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus specifies what that something often is, namely, jealousy. We can have everything and enjoy nothing because we are jealous of what other people have. How true. How often do we denigrate our own lives and talents, failing to see and savor their richness, because we would like to be someone else, someone rich and famous, someone set apart. Our lives are rich, but we are not content within them because we would want what someone else has.

There is a rich literature today, both within religious and secular circles, that tries to challenge us to not let our anxieties, heartaches, jealousies, and worries block us from entering fully into the present moment. Most of that literature is good since it formulates the right challenge. Sometimes, however, some of these authors give us the impression that, if you focus your attention and work hard at a few techniques, this is an easy thing to do. It’s not! Entering into the present moment, truly entering it without being waylaid by our own heartaches and headaches, is one of the most difficult psychological and spiritual tasks in all of life.

Our lives are rich, and that is true for all of us, not just for the rich and famous. At the height of his fame, the poet, Rainer Marie Rilke, received a letter from a young man, complaining that he wanted to be a poet but was handicapped because he lived in a small town where nothing exciting or noteworthy ever happened. Rilke wrote back to him and telling him that if his life seemed poor to him than he probably wasn’t a poet after all because he couldn’t pick up the riches of his own life. Every person’s experience is the stuff of poetry. There are no lives that aren’t rich; but most of us are blocked from entering into the richness of our own lives and can never appreciate the hundredfold … because there’s always something.

The challenge is to be present to the richness inside of our own lives, and that means learning to celebrate the temporary, the imperfect. That means learning how to go to the great banquet that lies at the heart of life, even while our lives are not yet fully healthy and complete. And part of that means accepting too how difficult this is, enjoying the times when we do get there, forgiving ourselves for mostly falling short, and having an epitaph engraved for ourselves that reads: There was always something!