Sunday, January 28, 2007

A Defining Word

I’ve been reading a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. (Thank you to my roommate, Johnna, for giving it to me for Christmas!) While her search heads in quite different directions than mine, it is the search itself that I connect with. In one section she writes of the different words that capture the heart of various cities… “sex” for Rome, “fight” for Naples, “power” for the Vatican, “achieve” for New York, “succeed” for Los Angeles, “conform” for Stockholm. She then considers the word that might define her family and herself. I think “quest” might describe mine. Or perhaps the word is “contentment” or “truth” expressed in the quest. And not truth in the sense of various absolute truths or provable facts, but rather “the truth,” some concept of truth in the whole that makes this world and my place in it make sense. Perhaps, as so eloquently put by my pastor, Paul Corner, this morning… “the truth” in the sense of “the way, the truth, and the life,” a truth that can only be embodied in a living being, in the living God, in Jesus Christ.

I love the quest, but the restlessness is driving me crazy. Forever searching. Forever seeking. Eyes always forward.

Interestingly, for me, the quest also involves a clear sense of the now. I am always seeking something better, but always in light of a very realistic assessment of the present. It is amazing how little we truly see of the now. How much we resist or deny the realities around us. To be truly attentive to the reality of the here and now is to allow the pain of this world to touch us, the poverty and illness, the war and violence, the greed and entitlement. Yet I cannot look away. I do, on a regular basis, look away. I can’t deny that. But the quest involves trying to keep my eyes open wider and longer… The whole truth… the way, the truth, and the life.

I wish I could say that my word was “Jesus” who is the way, the truth, and the life, but I think that would be claiming too much. Rather, I am grateful that our gracious God has allowed the word that defines me to be the pilgrimage that draws me closer to the divine.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Soglad your back blogging. I missed your writing. I always learn something. Mom