At the end of life, it’s natural to reflect on how you have spent the precious time you have had here on Earth. “The Boss”, Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about it called Glory Days. Erik Erikson, a psychoanalyst, clinically referred to it as a life review. My whole South of God writing might be just that: an exercise in review, looking in that rear-view mirror, and observing where I have been.
Lent prompts one not just to live in the past, but to become acutely aware of the present, examining where you are in the “now moment”, as well as planning for the future. This three-dimensional awareness of time can form a scaffolding for your care-full inspection of what is going on in your soul. Two key components of such an engagement are a healthy curiosity to wonder, and a concomitant measure of courage to look beneath the surface. Lent provides the “prompt to pause” to do this work of reflection which hopefully yields the fruit of self-awareness.
If you have been reading South of God recently, you know that I have been excited to rediscover the spiritual writings of Howard Thurman, who provided the soulful depth of the modern civil rights movement. His book, Jesus and the Disinherited is one of the texts for the Episcopal program of racial reconciliation, Sacred Ground, and is on the shelf next to my Bible, the Synoptic Gospels, and the Book of Common Prayer. Looking just now, that Thurman volume looks more worn than that of the other three, which says something. I am currently rereading that classic during Lent as well as daily diving into the spirituality classic, Meditations of the Heart.
There is a quote from Thurman that has grabbed me as of late. Here it is:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go for that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”
This quotation comes not from one of Thurman’s many books or chapel talks, but rather from a conversation he had with Gil Bailie, an author who wrote the book, Violence Unveiled. Bailie was questioning Thurman as to what the world needed most at this time. Thurman responded that one needs to begin with one’s own passion and purpose, and then bring that to the world. This exchange reminded me of my own extended conversation with Thurman which I mentioned in a previous article. Thurman focused on the interior depth, the fire within that burns. Discern that as the starting point, and then discover how to bring it to the world. For me, Thurman prescribed using Psalm 139 to get at that center where the fire abides.
My reflection today on Thurman’s words reminds me of another spiritual giant, Joseph Campbell, who taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College. Meeting regularly as an academic advisor to students, Campbell, like Thurman, listened carefully to what brings light to the student’s eyes, what quickens their spirit. And when that was clarified for the student, Campbell would advise them with three simple words, “Follow your bliss.”. That simple phrase became the touchstone for Bill Moyers’ epic exploration of Joseph Campbell’s massive work on religion and mythology, The Power of Myth. Follow your bliss.
While I was chasing down Thurman’s “coming alive”, and Campbell’s “follow your bliss”, I came across my academic mentor, James Fowler’s reflection on the nature of faith. Fowler broke onto the theological scene, claiming that faith is a universal human phenomenon. Everyone has faithm that is, a way of seeing the lay of the land of existence. It may include a divine presence, but it may be without such a reference. Faith is a trust in the way the world is. Fowler’s singular contribution was the this faith formation follows cognitive structures much like Piaget discerned in thinking and Kohlberg identified in moral reasoning, His book, Stages of Faith, has informed Christian educators over the past forty years,
One day, Fowler was on his way, driving to make a presentation in the early days of his ground-breaking work on the psychology of faith when he found himself in an existential confrontation with the meaning of faith in his own life. He pulled off the road and wrote down these pressing questions:
What are you spending and being spent for? What commands and receives your best time, your best energy? What causes, dreams, goals, or institutions are you pouring your life out for?
As you live your life, what power or powers do you fear or dread? What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
To what or whom are you committed in life? In death?
With whom or what group do you trust your most sacred and private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?
What are those most sacred hopes, those most compelling goals and purposes in your life?
Jim decided to begin his first book, Stages of Faith, with these pregnant questions. As we did the research on these stages of faith, we asked these questions and more to the persons that we interviewed from a variety of faith traditions. For me, it was so enlightening to be able to listen to these various stories of faith and attend to how people had found meaning in their lives.
I had the gift of working with Jim for three years at the Candler School of Theology as my academic adviser, and three more years working as his assistant at the Center for Faith Development at Emory. Questions of vocation and calling were always in play, working with seminary students who were struggling to discern their call; offering retreats under the banner of the “Pilgrimage Project” for ministers laboring in the field, mid-career, wondering if they could continue; as well as grappling with my path forward. It was a rich time for learning, deepening, and stretching.
Jim and I had similar backgrounds, paths, concerns, and values, and yet we wound up with vocations that were similar and yet distinct, I think back and smile at some of the difficult talks we had about how one might live one’s life faithfully. We both had some political inclinations yelling up from our basements, as well as voices calling us up higher from folks perched on our balconies, namely Carlyle Marney. Some of those conversations became heated as we both cared deeply about the subject, but there was always an honesty about confronting the reality and depth of the questions. He and I parted ways as I felt pulled to ministry in the context of the parish and in the Episcopal Church. It was a tense, painful separation as we had multidimensional bonds and personal expectations. But, what a gift it was for me to be in the presence of a giant.
I still remember the joy of bringing him out to my parish in Tyler, Texas and allowing him to see the work I was doing as a parish priest. I had invited him to come and present the Brookshire Lectures on faith development. In it, he surprisingly broke form of studied academic lecture and told of his experience of being with his wife as she prepared for a mastectomy. This Harvard-trained professor showed a side of himself I had never seen before, with a transparency to his emotions and pain. He had grown, he had developed his own self and soul which was a gift for me to experience. Later, we went to County Line Barbecue to break bread, share some brisket, and a few longneck beers to celebrate our friendship and shared vocation. That Texas dive became a sacred space of communion and reconciliation.
These days with the priests and ministers that I coach, I have my own set of questions that have given me some guidance personally and have provided some benchmarks for others. Sometimes, I am talking with clergy who are already in place in a parish or in a particular ministry. Many times, they are in the process of discerning if they should stay where they are or perhaps begin to think about a move or transition. I have to say that much of my insight comes from the nine-month vocational discernment process that I went through in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta led wisely by Caroline Westerhoff.
I begin by asking the person to identify the particular and peculiar constellation of gifts that they bring to the dance. I press them to be explicit about those gifts and try to surface talents that may be hidden. The liabilities, blind spots, and internal saboteurs are also needing to be explored as well in terms of discerning the course forward.
Secondly, what are the fruits of those gifts in the world in which one lives, specifically the congregation or community that you are serving? Again, I press for specifics and not just a general “feel”. What is the evidence of effectiveness in one’s current ministry? What proof is there that this is productive for the community?
And finally, I ask a question that seems to be surprising to most, but gets at both Thurman’s “alive” and Campbell’s “bliss”: Does your work bring you a deep sense of joy? When I am aligned with what I was created to do, I get a deep-down sense of joy in my heart. It’s not the passing, transitory happiness that I feel when I am having a good time or enjoying a particular pastime. It is more of a satisfaction that seems to fill my soul when I am doing what I am meant to do. I love it when that happens in my own life, and I yearn for it for others that I was walking with.
However you frame it, “coming alive”, or “following your bliss”, it’s about being or becoming aware of what makes your soul sing. Lent can be a time of self-examination where part of the work you do is clarifying what brings you a sense of joy. Lent is not just about repentence about your shortcomings anb failures. It can be a time of alignment for the soul that has become “out of balance”. I hope that you will use part of your Lenten pause to ponder that question. What makes your soul sing?
South of God 