wandering in the wonder of it all...

In my personal inward/outward journey of faith - as well as my professional work as musician, pastor, and spiritual director (or Anam Cara - soul friend) - I consciously pay attention to that tiny string of synchronicity that has been woven into the fabric of my life. The poet, William Stafford, put it like this in "The Way it Is."

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

For decades I've intuitively trusted this to be a spiritual practice that is the essence of a prayerful life: a way to pray without ceasing. About ten years ago, however, I learned that the ancient Celtic monks - my kith and kin - consciously trusted the thin threads of synchronicity to be the way of wisdom and revelation. The sustained explorations into Celtic spirituality by John O'Donohue, Christine Valters Paintner, and John Philip Newell all celebrate this truth. Dr. Paintner wrote, "We cannot become so impatient for the destination that we arrive before we are ready." Consequently, these wisdom seekers from ancient Scotland, Ireland, and Wales transformed the ancient practice of pilgrimage from one driven by the goal of destination to a prolonged act of wandering till the heart experienced the rest and renewal promised by Christ's resurrection. "There's going to be these little synchronicities. And if we take them seriously enough, it becomes part of a conversation that's unfolding."

When we awaken to the holy shimmering in each flower, tree, and bird, we suddenly discover that we are woven into a vast community. We find ourselves nourished and supported in ways we didn’t see before. We are called to hold this deepening awareness and trust that we are sustained and called forth by the choirs of creation into our own creative journeys of expression. The Celtic imagination moves in circles and spirals; values dreams and visions; sees animals as wise guides; and gives reverence to Earth, her seasons, and land as wisdom guides. Living in Ireland has broken open my own creativity in new ways and has affirmed my own inner sense that the creative process is best nourished by letting go of our goals and opening our hearts to what wants to arrive each moment.

Like the indigenous wisdom-keeper, Robin Wall Kimmerer, suggests: this spirituality celebrates practice and embodiment over abstract thinking and belief as defined by creed and dogma. Bono wasn't kidding when he sang: Grace trumps karma. When synchronicity and awareness are recognized as an authentic and healing spiritual practice, or as Nick Cave puts it - when our yearning is honored as relationship with the sacred - then we find ourselves saturated in the earthy holiness of God. As one of my spiritual friends often tells me: "Thinking is NOT the same as being." 

I don’t hold a lot of attachment to belief. I hold a lot of attachment to practice and how we embody what it is that we hold most dear. Whether or not someone believes a particular doctrine is not as important to me as the conversation that happens—and how we are in relationship to each other, how we show up for one another. I often think that so many of our world’s problems could be softened, alleviated, solved if we danced together. You know, what if we just had space? What if our politicians danced together before some sort of big summit? Dance for me is a symbol of joy and release and surrender and vulnerability. We could be bringing that kind of spirit into our relationship to others—whether we agree with them or not, that isn’t actually that relevant to me.  
(From an interview with David Dault in the April 2024 edition of the Christian Century: https:/ /www.christiancentury.org/interviews/our-unseen-companions)

Imagine my delight this morning, therefore, upon reading the reflections of Carrie Newcomer, Richard Rohr, and Mark Longhurst as they each and all spend time pondering the sacred nature of synchronicity. Rohr calls it evolving faithfully:

To fight transformative and evolutionary thinking is, for me, to fight the very core concept of faith. I have no certain knowledge of where this life might be fully or finally heading, but I can see what has already been revealed with great clarity—that life and knowledge always build on themselves, are cumulative, and are always moving outward toward ever-greater connection and discovery. There is no stopping this and no returning to a static notion of reality.

Longhurst writes: As enjoyable as thinking is, it impedes me from being present to what is right in front of me. When I’m thinking, I’m not paying attention. I might be thinking about ways to pay attention, or waxing philosophical about how the French mystic Simone Weil considered attention a form of prayer—all while missing out on the unique sounds, needs, and people that the current moment is placing in front of me. When I’m present, I’m receptive to an uncertain immensity that might lead me to new places; when I’m thinking, I’m trying to control and direct reality.

And Newcomer adds: I love love love people and places and my always surprising, changing outward life as a traveling musician and story teller of human possibility. But I also know that by nature, I “re-charge” in solitude. That I am deeply drawn too stillness and I know the essential importance of attending to my inner journey and inner work. It feels like these days we’ve all been invited to a huge banquet table culturally... It seems as though there are countless entities vying for or claiming the “head of the table”, asking for our daily full attention with a million pings and notifications and screens saying, “hey look over here, you don’t want to miss this thing that will fill your head with fear or anxiety or FOMO" when most of us would actually rather spend time at the middle of the table, with perspective and access to a balanced view of things and more inclusive conversation. Some of us long for the conversations that can only happen at the quiet end of the table, with a new or trusted friend. This includes those inner conversations and inner work that is easier to do away from the din of lots of outer hubbub.

When I step away from the "head of the table" to wander and notice the thin strands of synchronicity calling to me in the quiet: I am renewed. Revitalized. Part of our sojourn into the Eastern Townships of Quebec is a chance to wander without any concern to outcome or destination. Part of it, too, is to slip deeper into stillness in a shared solitude. And still another aspect is to listen carefully to whatever emerges during our wandering. This Mary Oliver poem popped up a day ago and captures the soul of our quest:

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean--the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?