a surrender - 16

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter three, "into the wilderness")

If I was actually going to follow that little idea lurking in the back of my mind, though, physical preparation wasn’t enough. I felt like I needed spiritual preparation too. I didn’t want to end up like Peter, sinking, in very deep water.

When Jesus reached out to Peter and caught him, he had called him “you of little faith.” I already knew that faith meant more than just believing something that I couldn’t see, something that couldn’t be proven. It meant more than just believing God existed. That was easy, and it cost nothing. It was like believing the Appalachian Trail was two thousand miles long, or believing that the shelters were located where the map said they were. That belief in itself wasn’t worth much of anything. But it started to mean something when you actually started climbing that first mountain, when you saw how far the woods stretched in every direction, when you started to feel truly alone. When your water was almost gone. Then it mattered if the next shelter was where the map said it was. Or if the next town was close enough for your food to last. Real faith was like that, I knew. Not just believing that God existed, but believing that God existed and was near and would catch me. And believing it enough to step out of the boat when Jesus said, “Come.” 

I thought about faith during those weeks in the wilderness. How much was “enough”? I was not a natural risk-taker. If I was going to step out of the boat, I wasn’t going to be doing it for thrills, and I definitely didn’t want to sink. But how would I know when I was ready? 

At the trail shelters there were log books. Hikers would write notes there, talking about what they had seen, or encouraging other hikers, or leaving a message for a friend a day or two behind them. The log books were usually pretty interesting reading. For some reason, I started writing some words of Jesus that I liked:

Whoever finds their life
will lose it
and whoever loses their life
for my sake
will find it.

I don’t know, it sounded deep and impressive and not too religious. Like a riddle for people to think about while they walked.

I often thought about that riddle myself. If I manage to find my life, I lose it. And to truly find my life, I have to lose it. Then I remembered that dark moment in the monastery garden, when I was waiting for the monks’ answer. When I suddenly realized it was an utterly lost cause, my life was in pieces, and there was nothing I could do. I was alone in the dark, broken and helpless. But in that terrible emptiness there was something powerful moving, coming for me, and I didn’t resist it, I let it take me. Not in despair, but in hope. I let it take me. And then suddenly I understood, I had the courage to return home and face prison. And then I was free. Looking back, I believed that I had been freed by the power of God. And that moment in the darkness, that surrender, had been a moment of faith.

That meant faith was not something I could get more of by trying harder.

Faith was a surrender.

Continued...

So, so long we walked

Then came my night of anguish

But the promise

lives

(previous years' Christmas haikus begin here)

a surrender - 15

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter three)

 

into the wilderness

At first, I didn’t tell anyone what I had in mind. I just told them that I was going on a long hike, for a month or so, on the Appalachian Trail. It sounded reasonable. A good way to clear my head after leaving the seminary, and lots of time to think about what to do next. But in the back of my mind there was an idea stirring, a tiny thought, that maybe after my long hike I could just keep going.

The Appalachian Trail runs for more than two thousand miles along the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. I wasn’t planning to hike that far, though. I had found a monastery near the trail, about a six week walk from the southern end. When I got there I could take a retreat for a week or so. By then I might know what to do next. The trail mostly keeps to the wooded wilderness of the mountains, though it crosses roads occasionally, and there are large, three-sided shelters every fifteen miles or so. There are springs along the way to get water, though the water has to be purified to be safe to drink. The trail is clearly marked. And there are maps and guide books that provide all the necessary information for hikers, including the locations of towns not far from the trail, where food and supplies can be purchased. So I bought a map and guidebook, to go with my small tent and sleeping bag, large backpack and good hiking boots. I was well prepared.

That is, my pack was prepared; it took my body a while to get there. I enjoyed the quiet hours of walking in the woods. But my pack was too heavy and there was a lot of climbing and my knees grew sore. It was carrying the pack down the long switchbacks that was hardest on the knees. People walking long distance on the trail often went by nicknames, trail names. I chose “Monk’s Knees” because my knees felt like I had spent too many hours kneeling in prayer. Even though I wasn’t hiking during the busiest time of the year, I met people on the trail every day, and often walked for a few days with one or two of them before we lost each other. The shelters were usually crowded at night, so I avoided them. They often had mice in them as well. I slept in my little tent. For simplicity, I had planned to eat only cold food. But I was surprised how much cooler it was at the higher elevation. So, after several days struggling to get moving in the chilly mornings, I bought a tiny cooking apparatus that could boil one cup of water with a fuel cube. After that I had hot cocoa each morning at breakfast, or oatmeal, and sometimes soup for lunch. And eventually, the hours of walking didn’t wear me out as much. I felt my body growing stronger.

Continued...

a surrender - 14

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter two, "the power of the people and the power of God")

All of these seemed to me good reasons for Jesus to avoid this kind of power. He seemed to be focused on clearly speaking the truth, not worrying about pleasing his supporters. And he wasn’t trying to get their money. So Jesus didn’t have wealth or political power, he didn’t have “the power of the people.” But he seemed to have power. He spoke with great wisdom and was known as an amazing healer, he had a powerful effect on people who met him, and religious and government leaders were afraid of him. It was becoming clear to me, though, that Jesus’ power was different. It didn’t seem to come from people. It came from God. His power didn’t require compromising the truth, it couldn’t be used for evil, and it was a power that didn’t corrupt. Or end.

I didn’t know if it was possible, but if I could be supported by this power, the power of God, rather than the power of a big organization, that’s what I wanted. But how would I find out? It probably wouldn’t be by becoming “part of something bigger than myself,” if the “something” was an organization built by people. That shift in my thinking probably contributed to the increasing disagreements and tensions that arose for me in the seminary. In the end, the choice was made for me. When my membership review came up, after two years in the seminary, I was told that it had been a close vote, but it had been decided that I would not be continuing my training with the Dominicans. I just “wasn’t fitting in.”

Then, in the days that followed, I recalled something. When I was first visiting the Dominicans, during one of the gatherings, someone had read the story of Jesus walking on the water. In that story, Peter, a follower of Jesus, asks if he can walk on the water too. Jesus tells him to come. So Peter steps out of the boat and begins to walk to Jesus. But then he sees the wind and the waves. Perhaps it hits him then, as he gets farther from the boat, that what he is trying to do is impossible. He starts to sink, and cries out. Then Jesus reaches out his hand and lifts Peter up. And he says to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

I remembered thinking at the time that there might be something important for me in that story. Crossing a lake in a boat is the normal way it’s done. The security of the boat is like the security of our organizations, that have been well-built and relied on by many people before us. But then Jesus appears. Walking on the water. At the time I thought, yes, that’s what I want. I want to walk on the water too.

I was too scared, though. So I got in the boat.

Now I found myself pushed out of the boat. And Jesus was still there. I still wanted to start walking like he did. I just didn’t know if it was possible.

Continued...

a surrender - 13

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter two, "the power of the people and the power of God")

Studying in seminary and on my own, I became more and more convinced that Jesus avoided using “the power of the people.” Though he gained a popular following, large crowds gathering to listen to him, he did not try to lead a popular uprising against the oppressive religious and governmental structures of his time. Once, when a crowd seemed like it was going to try to make him king, Jesus left quickly. He did not try to raise a lot of money, and he charged nothing for his teaching and healing. He also refused to let his followers fight for him. All of this left Jesus poor and vulnerable, without economic or political or military power. Intentionally so, it seemed. He taught his followers to do the same. So I couldn’t help but wonder why Jesus would intentionally avoid the kind of power that it seems everyone else is always trying to get?

As I thought more about it, I became more aware of several weaknesses of “the power of the people.” In order to get many people to work together, there always seems to be a lot of bartering and deals and arguing among people, who have different ideas about how the power and money of the group should be used. I saw this most clearly among politicians, but also in other groups. Sometimes it led to helpful compromises, but it often seemed to lead to the goals and ideals of the group being compromised, confused, or abandoned. And the need for lots of money makes this even more challenging. Because, in addition to appeasing the members of the group, many financial donors also have to be appeased. People who lead big organizations, such as politicians and CEOs, have to be very careful about what they say, in order to avoid upsetting too many of their supporters. “The power of the people” comes from the support of the people. So leaders have to say what will please the people, if they want to keep their power. And what if the people are deceived? Then leaders with bad intentions can gain control over the organization. “The power of the people” can be used for evil as well as good. I began to wonder: Does this power even push people towards evil? I had often heard the well-known saying, “Power corrupts.” And there seemed to be plenty of examples of this in history and in the news. The more power people wielded, the more they seemed tempted to think that they were above other people, and even that they were above the law. Then there is the final weakness of this kind of power, the one revealed in the decay and eventual collapse of every organized group. “The power of the people” doesn’t seem to last. Throughout history, every nation, every corporation, every organization eventually weakened and fell apart, and all of their power disappeared.

Continued...