On Edge...

I've been in the process of an interesting self-discovery. I have been on edge a lot lately, short with certain people and having very little patience for certain things. (Vague, yes, but it's better that way!) Today I've been coming to a realization. I feel alone. Now, that's a very strange thing to write, seeing as how I'm a minister, a husband, a father, a professor, and the list goes on....

But here's what I really mean. While I have been blessed of late to be on a much more intentional spiritual journey with my wife and daughter, I feel that I don't have anyone else that I'm journeying with spiritually right now. I had a group of guys here in Michigan who were my spiritual companions for quite a while. But things have changed. Here's the way that I feel, confessionally. (I do know, by the way, that this is about my perception of the situation and that subjectivity shades my understanding of the reality. But, since Kierkegaard wrote truth is subjectivity, here's my truth! ;-) )

Over the past six months the group of men who were my companions on the journey of faith have gotten busy. Their time has been sucked up by family concerns (rightly), other relationships that are more meaningful and more accessible to them at this point in their lives,
and, especially, the hectic nature of their jobs. Those changes have meant that I spend little time with these men outside of the "work" context. Now, our time together is devoted not to prayer and the sharing of our stories and experiences. It is devoted to tasks, to business, to strategic planning and visioning.

Here's the problem. As those relationships have morphed, I have felt more and more alone, a difficult, though frequently visited, place in ministry. This has contributed to an incredible lack of patience and grace with people, to a curt shortness that is ungodly, to a lot of knots in the stomach and stress in the shoulders. None of those things are very virtuous.

So, I am now rediscovering the way of the desert, the way of mystery, the way of loneliness, silence, and, ultimately, hope. I am at a point where I am attempting to rediscover the painful catharsis of the apophatic way. On the edge, in the margin, the desert, the mountain, the wilderness, there we mysteriously and unexpectedly encounter the Mysterious Other. I guess we'll see what happens.

Anywho, thanks for allowing me a chance for a little public self-reflection and some keyboard therapy. Of course, I guess the only choice you really had was whether or not to read.