Too busy with myself to notice goodness in another

16. When I was about 10 years old, my mother took me along to visit a friend of hers who lived in a tiny town called Ten Sleep about 60 miles from our home in Greybull. It was summer. Schools were let out; dads were working, and warm Wyoming days stretched endlessly on.

 

At this visit I learned that my mother’s friend had a little boy named Dana, who was two years younger than I.

 

Nowadays, some 45 years later, I can tell you that I was a self-absorbed little kid stemming from a disturbance in my own incomplete sense of self. As yet, this is the best description of me I have ever heard, and it comes from the “narcissism” section in the field of psychology.

 

Back then, at age 10, I was busy being myself and sorting out my world as best I could. I was my own narrator, so, my interpretation of things was often well off the mark. At root, I didn’t think anyone except my grandfather liked me very much.

 

I didn’t so much meet Dana as I found myself in the midst of his openness, his friendliness, his welcoming heart. He instantly made room for me and wanted to play. His undiluted joy was contagious and I felt, of all things, comfortable with another human being.

 

I can remember that we met up two more times – once in my town, and once at the swimming pool in Basin. In Greybull, we walked and talked from the City Park in the south end to the grade school to the north. In Basin, of course, we swam at the outdoor pool next to the gym and jumped off the high dive – our boney little bodies hardly registering a splash – and surreptitiously peed through our swimming trunks in the shallow end.

 

I had never been so pleased to know someone … to be in the company of someone who seemed to possess such personal strength, but who would only use it for good.

 

As it turned out, Dana and I never crossed paths again. Other than those three very impressive days, our circumstances would never pair us again. There were three Wyoming high schools between Greybull and Ten Sleep, and, of course, little kids don’t plan trips to visit friends.

 

At this writing, it has only been a few days since I learned that Dana died in Texas at the age of 19 in March of 1979. Me, I was busy with myself that month, in another country, studying to be a pastor. I didn’t get the news of his death until 33 years later.

 

Unfortunately, I realized, I have been busy with myself a lot since the day at the Basin pool. So busy that I did not realize the gift that those three days of acceptance had been to me. I understand that I was just a little kid back then, but I can’t help feeling stupid – and feeling a loss.

 

I mention this to students of the inner life because a twisted side-effect of concentration on one’s inner life is narcissism: Being so busy being yourself that you fail to notice the gift that others are in your life. I wish you had met Dana. He was a great example in this regard. Me, not so much. T.

Our inner life is mostly unseen good for others

15. Your inner life is not for you.

One of the key characteristics of the human soul is that it is made to give away. Primarily, we are expected to give ourselves away to God. This is our duty – to respond to God in love for him with all that we are. The Greatest Commandment, according to Jesus, contains this responsibility for us in the “you shall.” We are expected to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

In response to the second greatest commandment, we are charged by Christ to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When we address ourselves to God through this inner life, we find ourselves praying more actively for others out of love. As this inner fire is fanned to flame within us by the movement of the indwelling God, others around us will themselves behold the light of God and be drawn to his warmth.

The others – your neighbors – might not credit you with this odd attraction they have for God. Your very existence may not be of much importance to them. Your hidden life often remains hidden … both from you and particularly from others. You will not be fully aware of how God uses your inner life as a ministry to others. This is another way that the inner life is a life of faith.

Have you made a difference? Absolutely. Can you point to it? Mostly, you cannot. This should not be disconcerting to you. In the Kingdom of God, it is normal.

Note: This post stemmed from a concern that one of my life-long friends mentioned last August, while living under the threat of death from cancer. “You know,” he said to me, “where Jesus says ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant’? I am afraid of that moment, because I don’t think my life has been all that well done.” I assured him that he would be surprised for all the unseen good results his life has caused. He died in April. I am confident he got his “well done” from the Lord.

There must be a way to be truly relevant

14. When I first thought of myself as a contemplative, rather mystical-oriented person of prayer, I sought to attach myself to a group or order of people who distinguished themselves as contemplatives.

 

When we Catholics go through the confirmation process nowadays, we are allowed to choose the name of a saint with whom we associate ourselves. Having been influenced greatly by the writings of John of the Cross, it was a no-brainer for me to choose him as my confirmation name, and to designate him especially as a saint who would pray for me while I journeyed out my faith on this side of our divide.

 

I eventually severed ties with the contemplative order because, it seemed to me, it was merely a way to draw attention to myself; to set myself apart and a little above the others who were not so much contemplative.

 

Now, having journeyed still further with John of the Cross, as well as Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen and a few other solid teachers on this rather ethereal subject, I am leaning toward the idea that contemplation is, first of all, no longer the best word to use, and, secondly, that it is for every believer.

 

To describe Thomas Merton as a contemplative, for example, does nothing to help us understand his actual bearing as a Christian. I prefer to think of Merton as “integrated.” His life of solitude and silence, as Henri Nouwen points out, led Merton to a life of compassionate involvement in the lives of others, and a poignant critic of the world around him, and an expression of the love of Christ to the world in a singularly relevant way. This is a life for all Christians, despite our circumstances and despite our absolutely inescapable need to be personally comfortable about everything our faith demands of us. (Those looking on from centuries past must surely refer to us as “those unbearable lightweights.”)

 

Merton lived as a Trappist monk in Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. It would be easy to misunderstand and accuse him of hiding. Few outside the monastery realize what a social and cultural, as well as spiritual center an abbey becomes by virtue of the prayer that takes place within.

 

It is this immersion in prayer that will shake us loose from our superficiality and drown us in an integrated faith that will make us radical and relevant, as was Christ.

 

Until then, we are doomed to be cartoons or sketches of believers who add a smidgeon of the Christian faith to a comfortable life and call it good.