The New Years Eve ceremony, of saying what we were grateful for from 2009, throwing the things we wanted to leave behind in a fire alongside a beautiful full moon, was much more enjoyable than any other new years eve spent drunk (or trying to get there), at a bar, in a house, or even possibly while you try to avoid being kissed by your out-of-town friend's boyfriend. (Oh man, that year was a doozy...). It felt like the time to reflect, and it was refreshing to be in a community where such relfection was encouraged, supported, and well, socially normal.
The full moon, & a hermitage on New Years Eve at the Christine Center
However, there has also been a tension in my time here, tension between time alone to reflect, nourish, (sometimes simply not to barf publicly), and time with a community that has it's own ability to give life and replenish a tired wanderer. It is hard to always know which is needed, and when.
My time alone, while certainly tarnished by illness, has left me feeling drained. And I have felt somewhat alienated too by the intensity of my fellow retreatants. We are not the same as the sisters. The sisters, each in their own way, radiate a sense of peace and inner knowing that so many of the rest of us seem to be trying to find. And among my peers, there is a great deal of intensity, brokeness, the need to tell ones story, and repeated narrating of key turning points and mystical moments. This constant retelling of "the experience that changed my life" or "my complete identity crisis" or "laying on the floor for months, just receiving divine wisdom" seem to me to be authentic, in that the person describing them feels them fully and attributes great power to these times in their life, and yet also, somehow horribly misguided.
There is something missing. The journey can't just be moments of ecstasy, or the brave climb back out of the abyss, the constant search for new eyes; the journey is certainly a story, an inner myth, and worth retelling, but it is also not a Steven Spielberg movie. I see much drama, and vivid pain, and many trying to find themselves -- all of which I can relate to -- but I don't see very much quiet knowing, very much quiet peace, or very much acceptance of this time, right now, as being as precious and valid as those lightbulb moments. This is not a condemnation. I myself cannot pretend to have the inner peace and knowing many of the clergy I've met in my lifetime (although, certainly not all, or even most perhaps), seem to have. I feel broken, and like I want to be heard, and I see myself in these people. But I also find myself wanting to pause, to step back, to say "wait a minute..." because those moments of divine inspiration may be powerful, but they are only possible through the daily preparation and mindfulness we are constantly trying to gather around ourselves. It seems counter-intuitive to me to worship those moments of heroism and ecstasy when we must also stay in the present, and most of the present, most of the time, is much simpler. It is a plain life, to serve others, to have a routine, to work, to live. And I'm convinced that somewhere in that plainness is all of the divine guidance and love we are so desperately clinging to with each retelling of "that one time I really knew God existed."
It seems to me that if we had more faith in our path, more sureness in our intuition, this time, right now, this day, however mundane would hold all that we could ever ask it to. And while moments of great enlightenment would no doubt still be powerful and long-lasting and change us deeply, they would not be all that we live for. They would not be what we define ourselves by. They would be one more day, one more moment, one more manifestation of our inner knowing that we are divine creatures, given a path and the choice to walk it, run it, climb it or even to choose another.
When I could first name my dark night of the soul for what it was, and I could first point to the divine intervention that saved me, I thought that I held the Universe, the truth of everything, in my hands. Suddenly there was God. Aha! And I knew it, deeply and profoundly. There was no going back. I have hungered for more signs, more experiences to reassure me I'm still in touch. I've wanted to tell my story. In telling it could be relived, it could be real again, if only in a shadow of what it was. But more and more, I find myself turning away from these glamorous declarations of truth-knowing. They are so appealing, brilliant, a regular spiritual orgasm. But they feel false too, they feel inadequate to describe the journey, to explain my inner light. The truth is that many days I don't feel connected spiritually. And I do feel lost. I feel uncertain. Even desperate at times. But each one of these days is just as spiritually brilliant. It's my own fear that makes them seem dirty or only worth mentioning in the context of a divine revelation. And worshipping the divine through these overt displays of mystic experience somehow seems to inherently take away from all of the rest of the divine in my life.
God is always with me. I'm not sure I'm always with Her; but I try to be. And I agree with Luther that our salvation is a gift of God's grace. I am no more holy for having seen a picture of the virgin Mary weep, I am just someone who has seen a work that I feel brave enough, bold enough, (finally) to call evidence of God, --ironically, in the midst of an entire creation that is nothing but. (Does He laugh at our childishness? Look Mom! Did you know there was sand on this beach? I can prove it. Look, I found a sandcastle!)
God's grace is present in me, either way. And maybe if I could stop looking for a flashlight or microscope to help me see better, I could use those lesser-used eyes within me to observe that God is with me now, here, in all of my medicority, with unfinished projects piled up beside me, a half-empty mug of coffee that's gone cold and an ache in my neck that's inevitable from my poor posture. I wonder how the story I tell would change then. I wonder if maybe I'd feel a little less alienated here, a little less drained, because I'd see God more clearly in each story and person and moment.
Above: A shrine to all religions at the Christine Center.
Of course, that's a theoretical question, because right now God, I'm still a mystic. And I'm ready for another miracle damnit.
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