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Not an Easy Life

 

            I loved going into the classroom to teach younger students some of what I know.  Unlike Chemistry or some of the other sciences, what I know is not the same thing as a fact in science.  Of course, there are facts in the study of religion, but those may not be the facts that people assume.  For example, I do not think God is a fact in the world and my life.  God is faith statement rather than a fact statement.  By that I mean, I know God by virtue of faith in an Entity or Being that is beyond me or any other particular individual.  Faith is more like trust than it is a fact. 

            That does not mean God is any less real for me.  But I cannot prove to someone that God exists or that God loves me and others.  That is my experience, but I recognize I can be mistaken.  This means I could not teach students the facts about God and expect them to sign on the divine bottom line.  Some may believe much like I do.  Others don’t believe it at all.  Our job in the classroom is not to try to convince each other.  We are called to respect each other and to be open to the sharing that can come from respect.

            Whatever God is to me has to be grounded in my own life and my own life experience.  I recognize that much of our experience in an interpretation.  But much of the deepest aspects of ourselves is an interpretation.  For example, if I develop significant feelings for someone, I probably will say that I love that person.  What I call “love” is a complex mix of feelings and thoughts that I choose to identify as “love.”  And then I choose this one word, love, to convey to the person what I want them to know.  And I usually don’t spend time wondering how they interpret the word “love” that I just used to tell them how I feel.  Talk about risky business!

            All this is on my mind when I walked into the first class session of a course I taught entitled “Contemplative Spirituality.”  My goal, as I tell the students, was to help them learn about and then begin to live as a contemplative.  Of course, most of them have no clue what that means.  They might use the word “contemplate” to mean thinking seriously about a problem or matter in life.  But there is a rich history of contemplative spirituality, not only in the Christian tradition, but in most of the major religious traditions.  And it is a fact what many of the folks in those historical traditions have said about contemplative spirituality.  And we can learn those facts.  But the facts don’t make us contemplatives. 

            And so the first day of class, I often turned to a key text we use.  I liked Roger Walsh’s book, Essential Spirituality.  That book describes the seven practices of becoming contemplatives.  The practices have to do with things like emotional wisdom, ethics, service, etc.  That is all the content for the whole course.  I like to start small.  But small is not always simple.  For example, the last time I taught the class, first day I chose to begin with the first sentence of Walsh’s book.

            The first sentence affirms, “Life is not always easy, but it can be ecstatic.” (1) I ask students to spend a little time reflecting on these words and see if they have an experience in life which resonates with the sentence.  There is no question for most human beings, life is not always easy.  Students begin to appreciate the clarity of language.  For example, the little adverb, always, plays a huge role in that sentence.  Of course, sometimes life is easy.  Sometimes life is a total blast---it is fun, filled with joy, etc.  But life is not always easy.

            There are times when life is a pain.  And there are times when life brings more pain that we want or, perhaps, think we can sustain.  There is no fun and nothing is funny.  These are the times we may really wonder if there is a God.  And if there is a God, we are not sure what that God who loves us is up to?  In faith I am never led to despair.  Life is not always easy, but it is still possible.  Life does not become impossible.  With God nothing is impossible.  That is faith.

            Life is not always easy, but that does not mean that life is always difficult or a disaster.  The last half of that initial sentence is just as important.  We are reminded of the other half of Walsh’s sentence” “…but it (life) can be ecstatic.”  Ecstasy means things are so good, we go outside of ourselves in joy and delight.  Things literally are unbelievably good.  This often feels like grace---like pure gift.  We get joy and we get to enjoy!

            Again, language is important.  Walsh only says life can be ecstatic.  It is a possibility; it is not a guarantee.  He does not say life will be ecstatic; it can be.  I am good with this possibility.  Possibility is enough for hope.  If life is not always easy, it is nice to have the hope that is does not have to be hard and awful.  There is the possibility and hope that life can also be ecstatic. 

            To live long enough means most of us will know both halves of that sentence.  We have experiences where life is not always easy.  And we also probably have experiences when life was ecstatic.  To become contemplative is to be able to deal with life when it is not easy and to celebrate those times when life becomes ecstatic.  I liked to tell students being contemplative works better in community.  Life does not have to be a lonely, solitary journey. 

            My faith tells me we were created by Love for love.  Love is our way of coming to be in the world and the way we are to be in the world.  This faith is foundational when life is not easy.       

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