2. Orienting Our Disoriented Lives

When we cross a new threshold in our lives, our previous ways of navigating life can either be a help or a hindrance. What happens when old maps no longer help us navigate where we want to go? How do we find our bearings? Feelings of disorientation aren't a sign of failure or a lack of belief; rather, they are a necessary, healthy stage of spiritual growth. 

Featuring music by Daniel Couper: http://www.danielcoupermusic.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Questing Souls podcast where friends come together to explore how we can journey deeper into the divine life. I'm Independent Christian Church Pastor Benjamin Lee, and I'm joined by my good friend, theological enthusiast, fellow wayfarer, Hannah P. Kiker. Whether you're searching or finding, deconstructing or reconstructing, wandering or wondering, we invite you to join us on this essential quest for a life that is good, beautiful, today's episode is brought to you by a 19th-century English poet, an Australian monk from the Tarawara Abbey, and a Kentucky monk from the Abbey of Gethsemane, who will all help us orient our oftentimes disoriented lives. Hannah Benjamin! I noticed that uh I think last time I got hung up on wandering or wondering.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

No, no, no. It was the reconstructing and deconstructing. Oh but last time you got hung up on reconstructing, and this time you got hung up on deconstructing. My bad. That's just that's just for entertainment purposes. What is? You saying the word off a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Oh, yeah. That's yeah, it's totally it's totally intentional. It's to embrace the flawed aspect of humanity. Oh humanity.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

What's going on? Nothing much. What's up with you? Not much.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

So the next couple of episodes, we're going to talk about different ways in which people have mapped the spiritual journey, the spiritual terrain. Um, and today one of the things I wanted to look at was also how we inherit certain maps, whether they're uh good and useful or kind of good or just bad. So uh yeah, talking about the maps that we inherit. The other thing we're gonna talk about is just the uncertainty. No matter what, even though we have a map, we're gonna be talking about the uncertainty of never fully knowing if we're on the right path. I can remember using a map uh many times on Appalachian Trail or or kind of an offshoot of a map. And just because you have the map, you don't necessarily know You also have to know how to read the map. Going the right direction, or even on the trail that you think that you're on. Um and finally, the other thing I think is probably most important from uh today we'll talk about is we we often when we're talking about using a map, is it's often about what we're doing. And I think the most important thing that we need to highlight is uh that God is moving towards us relentlessly, and that all action is a kind of response to this primary action of God pursuing us. Before we get into that, I was just thinking about navigating with bad maps or bad instructions, navigate navigational instructions, or maybe I should say uh instructions that might be great, but just not necessarily for me. And so one comes from my very, very good friend, Tabitha Hauser, who used to work for shout out.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Maybe maybe she'll start listening to the gave her a shout out. Yeah, exactly. She used to work for an organization just over the border into Mexico, Piedras Negras, just outside of Eagle Pass, I believe. Anyway, she would sometimes give people, she would sometimes give people directions of like, okay, you drive down this road and you'll see a man plowing the field with a donkey and take a right.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

But only sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

And it will it just so happened that that guy was always out in the field with a donkey in the summertime when people were taking these trips. And uh yeah, she just realized, like, oh, I better, I better come up with some better navigating advantage.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Did he get lost? No, there was not there. Was he there? No, he was there.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

But he was off in the corner of the field, and he wasn't really plowing the field, but it was like a dude with a donkey. Like that. And so look for the dude with the donkey. And sure enough, that's where the our kind of headquarters, like our home base was gonna be. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

So it actually worked. Like we found it.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

But this is very precarious, right? To have a moving landmark? A lot, a lot hinges on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

There's gotta be some lesson in that, moving landmarks, but I don't know what it would be.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Yeah, that's that's uh anyway. That's that's one kind of map, one kind of directional instruction. But hey, I knew that you spent some time in Kenya. Were you born in Kenya?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

No, I wasn't born in Kenya.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Okay, but you were when did you go there?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Uh we moved there when I was four.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

So we lived kind of out in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And until about like 14, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Okay. Yeah. Um, out in the out in the water. Out in the bush, as they say.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Uh so I know from another some other friends of ours who are out there. Uh you just motorcycles are great, dirt bikes are great. And uh what was the car Tim was telling me? Not Land Rovers.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

He's like, We had a Pajero.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

What's a Pajero?

SPEAKER_01 5:29

It's like a Land Rover, but a different brand. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Toyotas. Tim swears by Toyotas over in Kenya. Why? He said they're just they last the longest because the land is so brutal, because it doesn't have roads.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Which is why I ask like, did you live?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

I mean, let's be clear. There are roads in Kenya. I didn't mean that.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

It wasn't a blanket statement.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

I know, I know. I just felt like we should make that clear.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Okay, very good.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Okay. Disclaimer over. Go.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

I can I can sense you're trying to cancel me.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

You were like this close to be like Um, Ben doesn't think that there are roads in Kenya.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

No, where y'all lived, there's not a plethora of roads.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

You're absolutely right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

So how in the world did you how far out? Are we talking hours away from civilization?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah. How did you we so I grew up in a desert area that had liter with a semi-nomadic tribe. And so, I mean, literally there were no roads, no street signs, no uh anything. It was just you drove through the desert. So, and you know, deserts like roads get covered over. Like when the wind blows, or are we talking tracks, I should say, get covered over as soon as you So there's some trees, but it's sparse, right? Yeah, yeah, there are some trees, and there's some like landmark type things like a mountain here or there. There was one mountain that looked it was just like a mountain range in the middle of the desert that made no you were like, How did this get here?

SPEAKER_03 6:54

So when you left your house, what did you Well? How did what direction did you go?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Sometime I just talked to my dad about this, actually. Okay. Yeah, yeah. What do you remember? I mean, I remember I have distinct images of like driving. We had places that we would be like, Oh, we just knew, like, oh, there's that tree. Go to the right of the tree, you know, or there's the mountain, cut around the like left side of the mountain, you know, like I don't know. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we I don't know how just by landmarks. Honestly, yeah. I have and at night, and at night, I mean, most of my memories of traveling that way are at night. And my I am assuming assuming my dad just used the stars. I don't think I actually should ask him this. I've never asked him.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

How did you get people to your house? How did you give directions?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I don't think people could really get to our house without us bringing them. Okay. It was so we were about we were about two hours from the nearest town, uh, a town called Lodouir. And now Lodoir is like a bigger town, and but at that point it was I mean, it was very more like a I don't know what the word would be, village or something. Like it wasn't a that brings up another thing. That was the closest place.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Uh how when we talk about maps, I mean, guides are a kind of map. You know what I mean? I mean, we're not we're just talking about the the things that we need to navigate from point A to point B. And oftentimes that's a map, but the only I mean the the next best thing is a guide who is kind of an and who has internalized the map.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

But you don't always have the guides. Yeah. Which is why maps are.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I've always wondered what it was like that first time driving out to where we lived.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Like what my parents were. Surely somebody took you there. Well, oh yeah, absolutely. But just like wondering what my parents were thinking. Like, we're just like, there's there's some sand, and there's some more sand, and there's some sand, and there's a dry riverbed that's full of sand. Like, I don't know how they did it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Oh my god. But anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So I think that has probably affected how I think about maps and you know, all like guides and now yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Yeah. So do you feel do you feel like less anxious when you when you try to navigate without a map or a phone, or have you become kind of dependent?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Uh I mean, I'm American.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

All of the skills honed out English are now gone. They're all gone. Very good.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

I would I think I think I could tap into them if I needed to.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

Just gotta be yourself. You don't gotta change. You don't gotta be someone. You just gotta be a chance.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

So I was thinking back to what the earliest map I had of the spiritual journey. And I don't know if you can remember if you can remember yours. It's not great. It's not it's not a great map.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Uh little Little Benjamin?

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Yeah, little Benjamin.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

So um starting off on his spiritual quest.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

That's right. So it was really like there was actually not much journeying to it. It's like, you suck. Uh I mean, they would be a little bit more gentle, but have you heard of the Romans Road? No. Okay. Speaking of journey, uh uh this is this was one of the maps that was famous among many, many evangelicals. But it's something I'm gonna like, I'm gonna kind of just run through it real quick. I think you'll hear some familiarity to it.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying this was your kind of first spiritual map? Was this Romans Road? Yes. Okay, great.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

And the Romans Road, the reason why they call it the Romans Road, it's a it's a way of categorizing and tracking what are the most important landm landmines. It could be that landmarks, uh, and how you can help somebody else.

SPEAKER_05 10:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

And it goes through the book of Romans, cherry-picking uh some cherry-picking some verses out of it. Uh as you can tell, I'm already showing my hand that I don't like this now. Uh, I later, like just like three years ago, was able to take a class in Romans with this, uh with Ramsran, who's like um he's he's a great New Testament scholar, and it's just like, oh my gosh, this is one of the most beautiful texts I've ever read. And it's just too bad that all of the life had gotten strangled by my early teachers. But anyway, that is too bad. So but you found it. This is not this is not again, these the there's truth to this, but it's it's inadequate, I guess you'd say. So one uh Romans like three talks about all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So what does that mean? That means you need salvation, you sin, right? Uh and there there's there's some questions they ask when you're walking somebody through the Romans road, and they would encourage people to just meet people on the streets and start up a conversation and get to them to the point where they're saying, um, oh yeah, I've done something wrong, I've done something bad. Well, you know what the second point of the Romans Road is? The consequences of sin, the wages of sin is death. Is death, right? So that's two. That's the second one. But the third one is but God demonstrates his own love for us and this, while we are still sinners, Christ died for us. It's the kind of fact. And then the response if you confess with your mouth, this is in Romans 10, that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he's raised from the dead, you will be saved. And then the fifth one is like, uh, then you're justified and go spread the word. So the map was really like really about how to convince myself or others a that you're bad, b, here's some information, information of you've sin and the wages of sin or death, and the information Jesus died for you and saved, and all you have to do is believe. And as a kid, all I knew belief was was like, oh, I got those facts in my head. Got it. I just gotta convince other people of this. And that was the map. And oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And so what I found somewhat insufficient with it was that it located me just on the wrong road. And so there was no way of comprehending was there anything redeemable about the road I was on? It was just like, nope, you're on the wrong road, on a highway to hell.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Interesting. Yeah. Highway to hell.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Jeez. Well, I mean, that's that's what it that's what they said. You know, you just you if you don't have these boxes checked off, you're just on a one-way track to hell. And then the most important course of action, as I mentioned, was just you just believe and confess.

SPEAKER_05 13:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

And so it's kind of a it's kind of a short road. Uh you're on the wrong one. You just make this one turn. And then after that, like, what do you do? Well, that's it. That's that's the road. That's the map. Confess belief.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

And so super helpful.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah. Well, was there a point that that you kind of realized that that what kind of a map that was, and that you kind of found or found came in contact with new maps? No, that's made things more uh put that into perspective.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. And first, I think the first thing was just realizing, oh, this isn't the only way to map something. You know, that maps are always representative of something else, and there's so many different ways you can map a journey. So uh just realizing that this wasn't the only map, uh, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Yeah. So that was as odd as that sounds, that's that was that was that took a while.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, it took a map.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

To just shatter the like, oh wait, wait, there's another map, and this isn't the pristine uh like inerrant map. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, yeah, I was in the I think this was maybe my second or third semester, probably my second semester at Milligan, and we were doing church history with Craig S. Farmer, our dear friend. Yeah, the grumpy church historian. As I think a lot of church historians are just by nature a little grumpy. I don't know why that is, but uh anyway, uh Craig would not mind me mentioning that. But anyway, he was a fantastic church historian, and one of the things that he did, even with these undergrads, is he had us read these primary sources. And so I brought with me this book, Readings and Christian Thought, translated by Hugh T. Kerr. Uh, second edition. So this is a first, so it's just a it's just an anthology of primary sources. It gives you a brief introduction. Uh, and then so uh this was I don't know, halfway through the semester, and we get to two readers back to back, Katherine of Siena and then Julian of Norwich. Never heard of these these people. And so we're reading, uh I started to read them, and this is like just second paragraph in. I come across this line, and I like still have my marks.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Is it it's Catherine of Sienna?

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Yeah, this was Catherine of Sienna, and I'm so used to just theology of talking about God. And and then here's this primary source from somebody from the 14th century, and here's how she is talking about God.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

Thanks. Thanks to thee, O eternal Father, for thou hast not despised me the work of thy hands, nor turned thy face from me, nor despised my desires. Thou, the light, hast not regarded my darkness, thou, true life, hast not regarded my living death. Thou, the physician, hast not been repelled by my grave infirmities. Thou, the eternal purity, hast not considered the many miseries of which I am full. Thou, O eternal Trinity, art a deep sea into which the deeper I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Wow. Is that not awesome? I've never heard that before.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Yeah, and I just it was like beautiful. I start peering into a pool, right? And then I just start falling in headlong into her writing. And to have a writer, I'm I'm not just reading about her thoughts, I'm reading at how she looks God and the world. And I'm like, oh, I've got a lot to learn. And uh, and especially the uh the deeper I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek. Like that named something in me that was kind of missing. Yeah, but not necessarily missing. I was I was already, even as a kid, you know, these this hunger for transcendence or this hunger for um just looking at things mysterious and wanting to be connected to it, um, were things that I thought that she's kind of naming. And I'm like, I gotta read more of these people. So uh, and then I'll just briefly read the other one that again talk about loosening the grips of kind of a crusty map, a crusty way of seeing the world. Then you got Julian of Norwich uh right out of so that this is right out of the gate, both of these, their first paragraph, uh, or the first paragraph of the excerpt that we're reading. God rejoices that he is our father, and God rejoices that he is our mother, and God rejoices that he is our true spouse, and that our soul is his beloved wife, and Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus rejoices that he is our savior. Wow, this notion of God transcending um all of the ways in which we understand God, and again, all of these are relational, but exploring not just God as our father, which is a rich metaphor, but then having permission to explore ways in which we relate to God or find our way to God, or God finds his way to us through fatherhood, through motherhood, through spouse. That was an interesting thing, and then understanding God kind of loving our soul and our soul being the wife. Uh, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Well, um and both those passages, like they're not scared of God, right? Like they're not, he's not something to be afraid of.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Like God, our taskmaster, which I could see as like a slave driver. God, our disappointed parent.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That yeah. There's a sense of joy in that that isn't present in a you know, a theology that says like the Romans rode, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Yeah. And when you think of the medieval, uh medieval Christianity, I mean, those cats were medieval, and it was not dark and dreary, you know, or self-loathing. I mean, there's an awareness in Siena, you can hear a little bit of an awareness of inadequacy, but it's an it's an awareness of one's inadequacy in light of such beauty. It's really um, it's not a shame as much as uh an enthrallment.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, and a humility, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

Well, how about you, Hannah? Can you remember some of the early ways in which you um framed the spiritual journey or ways in which you kind of inherited ways of navigating your spiritual life? Were they healthy? Were they a mixed bag? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

I think I would say they were healthy. I think for me, I had a kind of a different view. I think I had a little bit of a different experience because of growing up, you know, in another country, uh or growing up in Kenya. I think um my my early faith, when I think back about it, was really formed by watching the Turkana people watching people kind of come to faith. Um and I think in seeing that, I saw um people becoming Christians because it it freed them. Like these were people who um had ascribed to like ancestor worship and it was a very much a fear-based religion. Um and I think watching them become Christians was like watching them be freed from that, even though there were you know at personal cost to themselves. Like they were um could be ostracized by family or friends, you know, there was a tight knit.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Community and family is huge. So it's a huge risk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah. And it's, you know, it's their tradition. There's so much wrapped up in that, right? Like so much culture and things like that. So I think, um, but still they were like taking this leap, you know, which which was just kind of I don't know. I mean, it really affected me like a as a kid. I think I saw like belief in Christ or like faith, the spiritual life being about freedom, right? Like um, I saw it freeing people and like energizing people, emboldening people. Um and so I think for me, uh I think an early map was was not that kind of guilt and fear. It was like the kind of the opposite.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Yeah, liberation. Yeah, liberation. And and not only it being kind of and it wasn't explained to you as much as you're seeing. Yeah, yeah. One of the things I noticed, yeah, was you're witnessing a cost. Like these this wasn't just a personal decision. I think that's uh uh such an important thing for you to just have uh seen and experienced as just it's assumed versus um kind of the assumption in American Christianity is that it's it's a personal decision. Yeah, and it's really not tied up, it's not gonna mess with your life too much because it's almost like a personal preference. And for you to see, like, oh no, this is this decision is wrapped up and in uh a broader community, broader context that could be very disruptive. Uh yeah. And then also witness liberation from fear. And that wasn't just, I guess, for you to see it wasn't just a platitude of, oh, God liberates us from fear, but you could actually see people being that seems really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have these like one of my uh memories for my childhood that's the most like vivid is actually going to church, which um I don't know if you've ever been to uh an African service, but it's like was it in Maasai?

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Or was it it well it was in uh Nairobi, so it wasn't it wasn't the same as what Tim has told me is happening out in the bush.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, but yeah, but it's well it was so because we we're in a desert, right? It's like over a hundred degrees every day. So we would have church at night um after it the sun had gone down, yeah, and we would just meet. We didn't have a building, so we would just meet. I don't actually know how we figured out this random spot uh to have church. I don't know, but everybody would just sit like in a circle and it was just lit by like the stars. I mean, the the expanse of sky and turcana is yeah, because there's no light anywhere, so it's just like it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Talk about a cathedral.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, I mean, honestly, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Um because that's what cathedrals are made to do is to make you look up. And I didn't think like in the day, you're less inclined to look up. Oh, yeah, because it's so bright and it's hot. Whereas at night, I just never thought of that, that it would have the effect that architects tried to have uh in cathedrals of looking up into the heavens. Oh man, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah. I mean, I remember walking. We would we would start walking to go to church, like when we started hearing singing, and this was like far. I mean, we walked like, I mean, I don't know, I was little, so who knows? But maybe like a half mile, I don't know. And uh you could just hear it starting, and that so the whole service is in Turkana, so I don't in the Turkana language, so I don't I mean, I could understand a little bit, but not really. And so they would, you know, there was singing and there was people would get up and speak and testify and all of this stuff, but then but I couldn't understand any of it. But yeah, but so me and my brother would always like we always brought a blanket because we just all sat in the sand, and so we would we would bring a blanket, we often would like fall asleep uh because it just went on so long, it went on for hours and hours. Um, and so I would just I have these memories of just falling asleep, looking up at the stars, listening to this language I don't understand. Yeah. Um, and I have this really, really distinct memory of this thought coming into my head. And I don't, I mean, I don't know how old I was. I had to have been like definitely under 10, I don't know. But the thought came into my head just like, if God is here, right, then God is everywhere because we're in the middle of nowhere. If God is here for these forgotten people, you know, people in Kenya at that point wouldn't even claim claim Turkana. You tell them that you lived in Turkana and they're like, that's not Kenya. We don't claim so it was like it really was this just kind of forgotten land. And to have to experience God doing this work there, it was just yeah, I don't know. That's still just a core belief that I hold, right? That God, that God is if God can be there, he can be everywhere, right? Right, yeah. And I think like it it really gave me a strong sense of God seeks people out, right? Like he sends people to seek people and to bring people to him.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Yeah, I mean, recently I've really been noticing that in our gospel readings, um, just how often Jesus is on the fringe.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Uh and I wonder if it's it's that same, if, if it's that same principle, right? That like if the gospel in all of these accounts, he's constantly um meeting people, first of all, people who need healing. Nine times out of ten um in Jewish culture, certain ailments would put you outside of the community, and you could not come in until you had kind of been looked at by a priest to make sure you were healed, according to kind of the old school law. And uh so, like, especially leprosy. And so these moments of Jesus not only touching and healing, but what he's doing is like he's he's helping restore them back to community. But what it also means is where is he where is he spending most of his time? Yeah. Oh, it's on the outskirts of the town, yeah, and specifically the people have been forgotten. And again, what's the message? Oh, the message is like, oh, if God is here, uh then surely he's he's everywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

You saying the thing, this is this is going back to Catherine of Santa, but you saying the thing about the people with ailments, that line really struck me in the thing you read where she says basically says, like, you're a doctor who's not scared of our ailments. Yeah, yeah. That line really struck me. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

But anyway.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

At home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah. Yeah. Um but yeah, so I would say, I mean, obviously, I'm I'm sure there are, you know, there are other things that probably weren't as like great that formed me. But as far as like my very first, like what I can identify as my first map, I think there are a lot of things in there that I feel like really formed me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

So I want to transition with uh a really cool poem that have you ever heard of The Hound of Heaven? That poem? No. Okay. By Francis Thompson. He's the he's our, if you heard in the introduction, he's our our English poet. Uh, I was hoping he would be from uh a more fancy, not fancy. Uh wrong with it. What do you mean exotic?

SPEAKER_00 29:43

I meant more exotic against England.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

I mean, I have nothing against England. Okay. Um, and I also believe that Kenya has. Okay, that's not what I'm doing here. I just wanting something more exotic. Okay. Uh like if it was a poet from Namibia.

SPEAKER_05 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

That would have been better. I mean. So anyway, we we do have an uh Australian monk from Tarawawa.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Tarawara. Tarawara.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

All right, so anyway, our uh The Hound of Heaven. Here's why I wanted to read this. I'm just gonna read, it's a long poem. I'm just gonna read the first the first stanza and uh a few other lines throughout the poem. I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years, I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, and in the midst of tears, I hid from him, and under running laughter, of visted hopes I sped, and shot, precipitated down titanic glooms of chasmed fears, from those strong feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase and unperpeted pace, deliberate speed, majestic insistency, they beat, and a voice beat more instant than the feet. All things betray thee who betrayest me. The poem goes on. Deliberate speed, majestic insistency came on the following feet, and a voice above their beat, not shelters thee who wilt not shelter me. So I like the poem because oftentimes we can get a little too uh human-centered when we talk about the spiritual journey and what we can do and how we're navigating to God. And I think we need to, I think it's important to begin with this notion that God is already pursuing us. Um I think it was, it might have been Augustine or Meister Eckhart who said uh God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. And this notion that God has all of our activities are actually coming after the activity of God loving us, God pursuing us. And in some ways, it's like uh the spiritual journey is knowing how to be found. Um there is something that we do, there is some human action, but uh I just like the activity, or I like the the kind of starting point that this energy that we we think that we're using to go after God, which is those are some that is some energy, like it's only made possible because of God already pursuing us. And so it's a dynamic, but anyway, I just think that that's essential, like throughout conversations about spirituality, that this is not like um self-construction per se, but it's also God's not doing all of the work. There's a there's a dynamic going on, but starting with this notion that God is pursuing us like a hound of heaven, anyway. Yeah, I don't know if any of that resonates with you.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah, well, it reminds me of um the our other sponsor, yes, Michael Casey from Australia shout out Tarawara Abbey. Tarawara Abbey did I get it right? Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

Casey, by the way, if you any of his books are phenomenal, and um he's a he's a contemporary writer. So anyway, there's a shout out.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Yeah, he has in his book Toward God, which is basically about journeying toward God, uh it's one of my favorite books. It's really great. Um, but he talks about how uh how often in spiritual how we think of spiritual journeys as like from point A to point B. And often there's all this, you know, that's not really how life works. And he says, but actually, we don't need to worry about that because he's like, I'm pretty sure God like enjoys the pursuit, like that that God finds sort of a uh his sense of play, or God's sense of play is uh that creativity, right? Yeah being able to find new ways to reach you when you make even as you make sort of different decisions or yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

That our our our journeying is partly instigated by the pers the playful pursuit.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Yeah, yeah. He says, uh I would not be surprised if the challenge of ensnaring particularly rebellious human wills appealed to the creator's sense of play.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

It takes a little anxiety out of the whole, you know what I mean? Out of the whole notion, because it could sound so heavy, you know. We're talking about like cosmic realities, as we read from last week, you know, Nyssa is talking about it. Is only through faith that the questing soul can unite itself to the incomprehensible God. Oh my gosh, right? So those are like epic categories, and uh yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah, I think I like Casey's way of talking about it because he's very uh down to earth. He's also very like uh yeah, very chill. He's like, calm down. Yeah, just relax, just calm down, relax. Everything's gonna be okay. Um, because he so he talks about uh this idea of the spiritual journey is like being out at sea. Um and he I think the phrase he uses is like no land in sight, you're buffeted by waves, which is kind of an epic phrase. Um and he says it all depends, everything depends on even though you're out in the middle of this vast ocean and you can't see any sort of forward motion or forward movement, it feels you don't have land in sight to kind of help orient you.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

You don't have the landmarks, you don't have the landmarks, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

And he says, you know, everything is dependent on you. I think he says holding f steadfast on the course and trusting that uh having this deep trust that that like you are cared for even in that, and no matter where you go or what you do, God can find a way to reach you, and God is actually not even reach you, God is with you in all of those places. And so he says, because of that, you know, it he says it's like going outside of God's will, you know, like thinking about going outside of God's plan for your life, he calls it providence, right? Going outside of God's providence for your life would be like falling off the face of the earth because there it can't happen, like that's not how it works. Um, because God is always sort of present with you and finding ways in your journey to help you move towards towards God, right? So no matter what direction you're moving, you're moving towards God, basically, is this point. And so it does, it takes out that like that anxiety, I think. And for me, it's very comforting because I want to think about I always want to think about these maps, these you know, like the spiritual journey as like you do this and then you do this, and then you do this, and then you're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

You take a left here, you go right here, and if I do all of the directions correctly, I arrive. Yeah, not only do I arrive at the the specific loc the anticipated location, but uh also at the time that I that I set out to do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Yeah, and it's like, yeah, and I think like I always want to know like the right I always think, oh, there's a right way to do something, and I'm gonna find it, right? And I'm gonna do it that way, and then I'm gonna have this particular outcome. And I think it's comforting because he says he he gives you room to to acknowledge like life is not that's not how life works. Yeah, that's I think anybody who has lived any length of time could say, Oh, things didn't turn out the way that I thought they would, right? Or things aren't like we're always kind of constantly uh reframing, re-making decisions, you know what I mean? So I think I think he I find that metaphor in particular, the map in particular of like sort of being out at sea, I find that very comforting and very helpful because that's to me is more what life is like than actually like, right, right. Um and so yeah, I mean the idea of like like I think it would be I think it's comforting to me because it's otherwise it would be hard for me to kind of reconcile my life is this way and it's chaos, right? But I want it to be very linear movement, and you can't have linear movement in Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

And there's a common theme in the the people that we're gonna go through, some of the like big metaphors. Uh there's just a common theme of disorientation of um of night. Um and yeah, that and part of that in some ways it's it's to intentionally liberate us, maybe. You know what I mean? Like um, because every map is ultimately going to be inadequate in getting us to union with God, right? Because that's a virtually impossible task for us to do on our own. And because we're trying to unite ourselves to the incomprehensible God, then in some ways the the journey is going to have a sense of mystery and incomprehensibility to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

And so it's either going to be by our own doing where we feel like we've fallen off the ship, uh, or it might just be like, oh, that's the nature of the journey is to fall off the ship.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

So can I read you a passage from this Michael Casey that I love?

SPEAKER_03 40:03

Yes. Please.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Can you imagine ever saying, no, don't read me a blog for the love of God.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Do not read me.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Do not read me one more quote.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Uh okay. So he says, There is a providence of God active in the life of every person. This is no blueprint, which once settled cannot be changed. It is a patient, paternal, infinitely loving willingness to provide a way from wherever we are to our Father's house. If we are off course or going backward or completely stationary, a way can still be plotted. There is always a way. To put ourselves outside the providence of God would be like falling off the edge of the earth. It can't happen because if we go far enough in the wrong direction, we end up with an easy distance of where we should be. I just love that. Uh thank you, Michael Casey. Uh yeah, no, I I think like there's such a comfort in that. And I think like what you were talking about with we often talk about spiritual journeys as like, what are we doing? Right? What is our action? What are we and I think he he yeah, kind of reframes it for me in terms of like there's a lot more trust and faith, and though those things are kind of more important for the journey than like our kind of the striving kind of of on our part.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite people, Bonnie Thurston. She does spiritual direction, and uh, she's just a wonderful mentor uh of mine. But she says, in the economy of God, nothing is wasted. And so, you know, it's it's reflective of that Romans, uh, not the Romans Road, but there's a Romans passage that says God makes all things work to the good of those who love them. And so it gets twisted to say God, you know, makes all things happen. It's like, no, that's not what it's saying. Yeah. Um, but it's this notion of no matter what happens, God is able to use it towards the good, and and we can participate in that. And so none of our choices have a kind of unredeemed finality to it. And I kind of like that. And that's that don't worry if you fall off the boat, uh you'll just circle on.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Right. Well, and I think too, like, like I think often when we think of like a a well, just a journey in general, we're moving to we're trying to arrive at something or at someone, right? And I like the idea of thinking like you are moving towards God, but also you are already in God. Like you're you know what I mean? Like, I don't think we often don't think of like spiritual when we talk about like a spiritual journey, I think it's important to remember that that's that dynamic. Yeah, that that we are moving towards something, but we are also already are, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Yeah. It's hard to put words around it, but it's true.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Clearly, as I struggle to put words around it.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

Yeah. Uh well, it's like the T.S. Elliot about words strain and break under the pressure. Yeah. I think this is an appropriate time uh to pray Thomas Merton's prayer.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never be anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, will I trust you? You always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

And that's another episode of the Questing Soul Podcast. Thanks to Hannah for asking questions. The Saints for helping us be less anxious about where we're at. And you, dear listener, be sure to check out our next episode where we will explore a wide variety of ways in which Christians have charted this mystical quest for God.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

And your beautiful smile backends me home, and the tears that fill your eyes are all shines of life.