Recalculating...

I've been wanting to re-arrange the books in my office for months.  When I arrived in Boise, the goal was to get the books out of the boxes and on to the shelves.  Now it is time to place them more intentionally - so that they are easier to use.

I cleared off several shelves and piled the books on my desk, taking a moment to become re-acquainted with these old friends.  Many played key roles in helping to open my thinking and provide me with tools for my craft.  A few can now go to a library where others can read them.  One came home with me -  a book I remember reading as I teen, that I read again during my training years, and that now calls to me again.  I haven't read Fromm for decades, but To Have Or To Be beckons me again.

Perhaps the attraction is my growing awareness of the need to just be myself, after many decades of focusing on meeting the expectations of others.  Accepting that it is more than ok to be "me" is not an easy transition for a person with a hyperactive caretaking gene.  Nor does it help to have been professionally trained by my family of origin in meeting the needs and expectations of others.  Marry all of this to a religions vocation and the possibility exists to completely lose oneself in meeting the needs and expectations of others.  The combination allowed me to be very "successful" as a pastor to highly conflicted churches.  But at a cost...

This is not what Jesus was talking about when teaching that you find yourself in losing yourself.  Nor is this the Buddhist teaching of no self.  But it is what untold number of people (often women) have been  taught to believe is honorable.  But it is a lie.

It is in truly knowing ourselves - through living from our core - that we can live and love and serve in an authentic and integrated way.  If you find these words resonating within your heart, I will not cheapen this awareness by saying that the journey is easy or without cost.  It is a very difficult and often costly journey.  But it is worth any sacrifice, because in the end, it brings wholeness.

We put off so much in life - visiting relatives, writing letters, going back to school, finding a new job.  But one thing stays with us always, present whether pursued or not, and that is the call to the center of ourselves where the God we are seeking is seeking us.  Benedict says, Listen today.  Start now.  Begin immediately to direct your life to that small, clear voice within. - Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century


Here is the most amazing thing - it is through going to the center of ourselves and meeting God there that we can truly see ourselves for who we are.  We don't find our truth, or our answers, or ourselves, or God out there - instead, we find it all within.

If you've been looking for yourself or your truth or your answers or God out there, it's time for your GPS to recalculate and send you in the right direction - within.  And once you have made the journey to the center of your soul, then you will find the strength, courage and clarity for true service.

I will write again Sunday evening.  Until then -

Traveling mercies,
Kim