It’s
tempting, writing this, to just jump to the place where faith takes hold again.
This tale of being upended by a friend, being shaken to the core and feeling
lost, is really a sidetrack to the exploration of mindfulness practice. It’s a ‘for
instance.’
For
instance, the next time you’re upended and shaken, you might consider taking
heart. Having our ‘familiar self,’ our ‘comfortable self’ shaken can be a door
opening, a wormhole to a parallel reality. A way of ‘being’ where what we
experience is more real than the way of ‘being’ we know now.
One of the
blessings of mindful practice is, overtime, learning how to slow down and
witness our own lives. We’re more able to see what’s true, what’s not. What’s
helpful, what’s harmful. We get better at recognizing when the compass is
pointing true north and when it’s not.
For four
years I wanted so badly to learn what true north was. And in some of those
books I checked out from the library, I got the sense that it was possible. For
four years, I never knew what true north was for me, but I could tell that some
other people’s compasses were working for them. And even though it was frustrating
as hell not to know my own way, hope stayed kindled by witnessing other people’s
wisdom and integrity and confidence.
Alan Watts,
Teilhard de Chardin, G. I. Gurdjieff. I understood very little of what these
guys wrote, next to nothing, really. But I got a clear sense that they were
guided by that which they found trustworthy, by that which deepened their lives
and opened their hearts. Witnessing their steadiness kept me going.
Most every
morning for those four years I got up an hour early and read. Sometimes I tried
to pray or meditate, but nothing clicked for me those days with prayer or
meditation. But the practice of sitting in the morning with a hot cup of tea
and a book of wise words--witnessing other
people finding their way--fed my spirit just enough to keep me trusting that
there was such a thing as spiritual
food.
At the same
time (alleluia, alleluia, alleluia) how that quiet, solitary, consistent time
in the morning whetted my appetite. How sitting with both absence and the possibility
of presence kept alive a sometimes-sense that one day spiritual food might
rain down like manna even for me.
