Welcome back to my 50th Birthday Extravaganza! Thanks for celebrating with me.
DAY 2: VIGNETTE 2
Today’s vignette comes from Fr. Anthony de Mello.
He was an Indian Jesuit priest who got in trouble with the Vatican for NOT being dogmatic or doctrinaire enough.
He was an unruly mystic. That’s my kind of guy.
The story he told goes:
Once upon a time, a pious old man said to God, “God, look how faithfully I’ve served you all my life, right?” Of course, he heard no answer.
“Right,” said he to himself. “Now, I’ve never asked you for anything, right?”
“Right,” said he, talking on behalf of God, of course. And he said, “Now, I’m going to ask you for just one favour and you can’t say no to me. All my life I’ve served you, I’ve observed the law, I’ve kept the rites. I’ve done good to people, I’ve observed your commandments. Just do me this one favour: Let me win the lottery, and then I can retire in peace and security.”
He was convinced that God would grant him his desire, and he waited and waited and waited. And he kept on praying every night. After six months, nothing had happened. And then one night, in sheer frustration, he yelled, “God, give me a break! Let me win the lottery.”
Imagine the fright he got when he heard a voice reply,
“Give me a break yourself. Buy a ticket.”
— Anthony de Mello, Rediscovering Life.
OK, yeah, that is less a vignette than a cheesy dad joke.
But I love it.
To me it means you can pray all you want (and I do) but it won’t mean much if you don’t take the steps, do the work, lay the foundation.
Which leads me to …
GUESS WHAT Y’ALL, I’M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL
Not to be *too* much of a middle-aged mom cliche, but yep, I’m going back to school.
I’ll spend the next two years working toward my certificate in Spiritual Direction and Social Transformation.
What does that mean, exactly?
It means I’ll be delving deeper into
subversive spirituality
theories of oppression and liberation
practices of transformative social justice
It means in two years I’ll be a certified Spiritual Director, which is a companion who walks with you through a spiritual and/or existential time of questioning, growth, or crisis.
A Little More about Spiritual Direction
From an article about Spiritual Direction in The New York Times:
What [Spiritual Directors] offer is not therapy; according to Spiritual Directors International, a nonprofit in Bellevue, Wash., the goal of meeting with a spiritual companion is to take a “meaningful step to help you find wholeness and balance in life, not to mention a sense of connection with however you might refer to God, Allah, The Universe, or the Ground of All Being, that which connects us all.”
The practice has roots in many faiths, particularly the Jesuit branch of Catholicism, but contemporary spiritual directors come from a variety of religions.
“Most people come to spiritual direction looking for ultimate meaning, however they might define it. We don’t define it for them,” said Seifu Anil Singh-Molares, a Zen Buddhist priest and the executive director of Spiritual Directors International. (While spiritual direction is the more familiar term, he said, he favors “spiritual companion” because it is more inclusive.) “We support you in finding your own way to God, if that’s how you describe it, or Brahman, or Tao.”
Or the Great Cosmic Echidna.
But the program I’ve been accepted into has a slightly different focus. As the Center for Prophetic Imagination puts it,
“Most programs present spiritual direction primarily as a one-on-one discipline in which a practitioner works with one spiritual directee at a time or, perhaps, with a small group of spiritual directees. While this program prepares participants for that work, our aim is to go beyond the one-on-one framework to include training for work in organizations, activist spaces, and from within larger social systems.”
Whoo-wee. That is what sold me on the program.
I’ve spent over three decades in activist and social justice work, and I’ve seen a lot of organizations and activist groups struggle. Some manage to right their ships, but many groups fall apart, either quietly, with a whimper, or in a big implosion, full of sound and fury.
I’d love to be able to help folks keep going, together, with heart and humility.
Yep, you guessed it … school is another reason I’m so grateful for y’all paid subscribers —
— it’s part of my big ol’ midlife dream to be able to earn a decent living as I continue on the path I’m called to.
I can’t wait to share what I’ll be learning and pondering and getting wrong and messing up and growing from and … all of the above … with you.
Thank you all so so much for your support.
See you tomorrow.
Xoxo
The search for enlightenment or the meaning of life may be the end itself, as in "the way is the goal". The numbers one and zero each have no meaning other than being the opposite of each-other. We conscious beings have numerous opposites from which we derive meaning. Long ago I took a pill which was an ego destroyer. After a long struggle, I wrote down what it meant: I am my own self-delusion. Earl took one of these pills and concluded: this is bullshit. I think the common thread is: nothing exists alone, only relationships exist. Math exists outside of time and space and apparently outside of mind. What does it mean? Returning to real life: I worked 36 years in voluntary servitude and escaped into freedom upon retirement. Since then I do what I want: publish open source software, free for the taking. I get a few attaboys, and that is enough to make me exist. Happy hunting.
Perfect for you! A lifelong student!