reclaiming our purpose...

A small note has been floating around parts of the L'Arche social media world for the last month called: "Note to Self." It reads: 

"What is my purpose?" I asked the void. "What if I told you fulfilled it when you took an extra hour to talk to that kid about his life?" said a voice. "Or when you paid for that young couple in the restaurant? Or when you saved that dog from traffic? Or when you tied your father's shoe lace? Your problem is that you equate your purpose with goal based achievement. The Universe isn't interested in your achievements ... just your heart. When you choose to act out of kindness, compassion, and love you are already aligned with your purpose. No need to look any further!" 

I like it. It is something I have started to discover and trust and only wish I had learned it earlier. But that's the way of life, yes? Like Moses, we get a glimpse of the Promised Land at the end of the journey, but rarely get to enter it fully. While teaching people in concert to sing the song, "Somos El Barco, Somos El Mar," the late Pete Seeger used to say something like: "Learning the chorus of this song is rather like life: just about the time you get it - its over!" 

Thanks be to God for that - dayenu as our Jewish cousins sing during Passover - even that would be enough: a glimpse, a taste, a simple chorus, a sense that tenderness is our true purpose. Part of the season of Epiphany for those in the Western Christian tradition is about honoring the light. Following the star. Searching for and sensing our purpose within the darkness. It is a journey of mystery and trust that comes into focus only towards the end.

One of the ways our vision is obscured and our hearts confused grows out of our culture. We have been raised in a bottom-line, utilitarian world that doesn't have much room for mystical reflection. It takes time to grow a healthy soul - and we want results. The late Jim Morrison of the Doors used to scream during the 60's: "We want the world and we want it... NOW!" The way of the Lord, however, requires a long, loving look at reality before we slowly move into it. Richard Rohr offers a minority report: 

Most of us who live in a capitalist culture, where everything is about competing and comparing, will find contemplation extremely counter-intuitive. How do we grasp something as empty, as harmless, as seemingly fruitless as the practice of silence? Only when we know that it also offers a “peace beyond understanding” (Philippians 4:7) and a “joy that no one can take from you” (John 16:22).

In this culture, we have to learn to be still. We have to practice slowing down. We have to give ourselves permission to step out of the fray so that we can wander in the wilderness for a season or two. Beyond the demands of success. Without the need to prove our worth. Without feeding our addiction to filling everything full to overflowing. This morning's reflection on scripture, Luke 5: 12-16, reminded me again of how Jesus "withdraws into a deserted place to pray" after bringing healing to a man with leprosy. This seems to be the rhythm of the Lord during the readings for Epiphany: engagement and solitude, teaching/reflection and breaking bread with conversation before returning to work. Rohr writes that silence is particularly important for those of us who seek to engage our 21st century culture of consumption and competition tenderly: silence creates space to be free:

In contemplative practice, the Holy Spirit frees us from taking sides and allows us to remain content long enough to let it teach, broaden, and enrich us in the partial darkness of every situation. We need to practice for many years and make many mistakes in the meantime to learn how to do this. Paul rather beautifully describes this kind of thinking: “Pray with gratitude and the peace of Christ, which is beyond knowledge or understanding (what I would call “the making of distinctions”), will guard both your mind and your heart in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). Teachers of contemplation show us how to stand guard and not let our emotions and obsessive thoughts control us. When we’re thinking nondualistically, with this guarded mind and heart, we will feel powerless for a moment, stunned into an embarrassing and welcoming silence. Then we will discover what is ours to do.

The busyness of business and our obsession with judgment and consumption is one of the ways we are trained to miss our deeper purpose in life. Another has roots in how we learn about God. Towards what became the end of his life, the late Henri Nouwen took up residence at L'Arche: first with Jean Vanier and those in community at Trosly, France and later at Daybreak in Toronto, Canada. I am not the only one who believes that Nouwen's words became prophetic and poignant after his shift away from the academy and into the nitty gritty life in community. Not that there wasn't suffering. Nouwen had a complete emotional collapse at Daybreak. But as his world was turned upside down, he became un-apologetically honest about God. This confession is particularly moving:

It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God. Yes, God needs me as much as I need God. God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects his children to come to him, apologize for their aberrant behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them. I am beginning to now see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the One who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.

God needs us. Brilliant, don't you think? God aches for companionship. God searches for us. Yearns for us. Works with and through us. And God is changed by our love, too. God ripens and matures, finds new ways to love us just as we do with one another. I see this clearly in the movement of Jesus throughout the gospels: he begins by fiercely demanding that we change directions - repent - using the rigid language of his ascetic cousin John the Baptist. But after moving into relationship with people - broken, wounded, and lonely people - the Bible tells us that Jesus had "compassion upon them for they were like sheep without a shepherd." He began to see with the eyes of his heart. He began to trust what his beloved mother, Mary, had taught him about breaking bread. And holding all things quietly in his heart to ponder. About weeping. And listening. And carrying one another's burdens as well as their joys. To paraphrase Jean Vanier, in Jesus we see a God who desires to belong to creation through love.

This does not diminish God in any way. Yes, it is different from our dualistic deities whom we have defined as all knowing and all powerful. But God can still be wise and empowering through love, yes? God can still be mystically within and among all of creation even as God yearns for companionship, don't you think?. God can still be a mysterious lover even with a broken heart, right? If we trust that we are created in God's image, then we, too were made to love. To belong. To find our purpose through sharing and kindness, rather than crass competition and consumption. This short clip from Vanier is illuminating - part of what helped Nouwen rethink his understanding about God and his relationship with God - perhaps it will be persuasive for you, too.

credits:
+ https://hbr.org/2019/12/the-value-of-belonging-at-work
+ http://notesfromthechalkboard.com/2018/03/26/unexpected-power-kindness/
+ https://sacredartofliving.org
+ http://jyotiartashram.blogspot.com/2007/10/jesus-light-of-world.html