Recently I read a poetic blessing by John O'Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us) entitled, "For Longing." One line in particular has stayed in my mind and heart: "May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency." My longings can be experienced as God's urgency.
I recall the day when I said the words aloud to my spiritual director, "I just want to be the same person on the inside as I am on the outside." These words expressed my deep longing to live true, anchored and authentic, someone genuine. This desire propelled me onward and inward in my spiritual journey. Onward I moved into spiritual direction formation and training, seminary education and beyond. The inward journey, however, brought me to a more authentic way to live. All that I learned in information had to be digested, ruminated over, spit out, or taken in as a new truth to be tested, practiced and lived--the hard work of character development. I was brought face to face with myself and it wasn't very pretty. The inward journey is one of getting to know oneself, not as an island in self, but as one created in the image of God, meant to live as God designed and purposed. I had to begin to see when instead of living true, I would sell out to keeping myself safe or pleasing others instead of being steadfast in doing or voicing what I knew to be true and genuine. The false self, or inauthentic, put-on-a-show self, began to be stripped away until I arrived at the core without facade. I could not have even moved into this inner journey without the invitation, courage and strength to persevere from God, again experienced in longing and desire.
At this empty and naked core there is a new beginning, one launched in humility and spiritual brokenness with the knowledge that true and genuine life is marked with the imprint of God in my very being, created in God's image and restored into that likeness by Christ. I believe that God came in human form as Jesus Christ to demonstrate how to live out our genuine, true-self potential in this lifespan of time. Jesus is the example "the protype" for being human, for male and female. Jesus is also the way, the truth and my life. Each day I need to remember who I am and who I am becoming in and through the Spirit of Christ. My inward journey is deeply connected to my outward and onward journey and that seems right and good. It isn't always safe, but it is good.
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