JOY The Greatest Commandment, Part 2

   

So...where was I?

Oh, that's right.   I was telling you how I learned that 

The Greatest Commandment is JOY.

Here are the highlights from Part 1, in case you missed it:

1.  I had a recipe for JOY... but no joy  (at least not a sustaining joy).

2.  I offered to "give up ME" for Lent. 

    3.  God required crazy, radical, reckless abandon from me in return. 

That's pretty much the outline.  Let' see  if I can connect the dots...

After the lack of lightning bolts and thunder claps, I did what I always do when I pray--went about my business doing chores.  Sure, I still thought and wondered a lot about the "recipe" for JOY I'd been given, but there was also work to be done!  Plus, God can talk to me just as easily if I'm folding laundry as he can when I'm kneeling--as long as I keep my ears and eyes open.

Unfortunately, I can't remember now what exactly it was that prompted me to look at the Greatest Commandment.  Perhaps I was remembering a connection between it and the recipe for JOY that I'd learned in Dummies.  Or perhaps the very thinking about the recipe was echoing The Greatest Commandment for me. 

After all, I think you can see a connection in the recipe:

If you love Jesus first,  Others second, and Yourself third,

you will have JOY in your life!

I was pretty sure I knew the Greatest Commandment by heart, but just in case I was missing something, I decided to dig around in my bible and find it. (Actually, I think I looked it up in an online bible because I'm lazy like that, but humor me, will you?) 

I found it in Matthew and this is what it said:  

[Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."   

Mt 22:37-39

I don't know.  I was a little disappointed. It still seemed like the Dummies version was the same as Matthew's, except that Matthew wasn't promising joy, so maybe the Dummies had that part wrong.

Of course, I should clarify here that it's understood by me (and most Christians, I think) that loving Jesus is as good as loving God, since Jesus is simply one of three persons in whom the Christian Triune God is manifested.  So I was fine with that variation in wording.  (Plus, if  you use God instead of Jesus for the recipe, you end up with GOY which isn't nearly as cute.)

 

Also, I'd been taught enough to know that my "neighbor" really meant "everyone" -- all the "others" on this planet besides me, so that still seemed right, too. (Again, if you use God instead of Jesus and Neighbor instead of Others you're really slaughtering the whole recipe for JOY, so you kind of have to play along.  I mean who would want a recipe for GNY?).

That being said, the only other real difference I could see between The Greatest Commandment and the Dummies' recipe for JOY was the Dummies' insistance that I should love the other two first.  But still, putting others before ourselves isn't unbiblical as far as I knew so...hmmm. 

I tried again.  A different Gospel this time.

[Jesus replied]   "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 

Mk 12:30-31

Ugh.  Aside from requiring me to use my strength to love God, too, I didn't really see anything different in Mark's version.  

*DEEP SIGH*

Something was urging me to look closer.  I went back to Matthew.  Closed my eyes, took a deep breath and opened them. 

And I about fell over.

I'd always seen The Greatest Commandment as two commandments.  In fact, Jesus even says there are only two.  It seems pretty clear.  1) Love God above all things.  2) Love others as you love yourself.   

But this third time when I read it, all but six words fell away from the page,  and I was seeing something that explained a lot.  In fact, it was as obvious as the nose on my face, but I'd never seen it that way before. 

Do you wanna know what it was?

 It was this:

[Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 

Mt 22:37-39

Well, I never.

Now, if this isn't a news flash for you, and you've always understood The Greatest Commandment as a command to love yourself --and you've always been able to do it--then I have only three things to say to you:

1)  You are a Wise Soul.

2)  Why didn't you ever tell ME?

3)  I apologize for wasting your time.

As for the rest of you,  (if there are any of you left) before you go off feeling sorry for me and my lack of love for myself, let me tell you a little bit about me. 

First of all, before I had this revelation I did love myself.  Or at least I was pretty sure I did.  Every time I'd read that commandment before I'd read, "love your neighbor AS yourself."  This to me was saying, "Love others as much as you love YOU."  And it seemed to me that I loved myself an awful lot. After all,  I knew my gifts (even if I didn't always use them).  I also knew that part of loving myself was knowing what things aren't my gifts, and I was fine with that, too. 

But these words were coming at me in a new way.   I was seeing God taking that love for myself to a level far deeper than anything I considered possible.   Here I was staring at a command from God, delivered by the Son of God telling me (and now you, too) to:

Love yourself.

It doesn't say love your perfect self.

It doesn't say love yourself as soon as you (______fill in the blank________).

a.  eat right, exercise and lose weight.

b.  win Mother/Father of the Year. 

c.  win Wife/Husband of the Year.

d.  confess all your sins.

It doesn't say love yourself only after you're done (literally) loving God and everybody.

Turns out I was so busy focusing on the order of things, that I didn't see the fullness of the commandment. 

But it is clearer to me now.

God is asking me to look at my not so lovable parts.

Look at them, accept them, and love myself with them (not in spite of them), too.

In other words, I am to love myself the way GOD loves me.  

And that's when I realized where I'd gone wrong with the recipe!  I was loving Jesus (which is good).  I was loving Others (which is also good).  But when it came to myself...I was only loving the good parts.! The parts I thought God would want to see.  The parts I'd be too embarrassed to show you, (or me).

Yep.  I was all too *happy* to let those "darker" parts hide in the shadows where God (and I) wouldn't have to look at them except maybe once every Lent or so when I was feeling up to it.

So do you see why I couldn't find the fullness of JOY? 

I only had JO. 

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking.  There's a saying that states, "Hate the sin.  Love the sinner." That's all fine and good.  And that may be what you think I'm saying right now.   But it's not.

What I'm telling you here is that I'm understanding this commandment to be saying even more.  Granted, I'm no theologian or spiritual advisor, so feel free to check with either or both of those before you take my word for it.   But as a Child of God, I'm telling you what I *know.*  And  what I *know* is that God doesn't hate our sins.  What he hates is the fact that we don't "give them up" to Him! 

Instead:

We hang on to them. 

We hide them.

We ignore them.

We wish them away.

But we don't accept them. 

And we certainly don't "give them up." 

In doing this, we miss the Mystery of God's love working in our lives, and we do not allow our sinful selves to be transformed.  Even worse, in hanging on to our sins (or hiding them, etc.) we continue to transmit them to others.  

Any guesses who is happiest then?

The only "fix" then, is to accept ourselves in our fallen, broken, sinful human state and dare to love our very weaknesses--our sinful side-- as well as our strengths. 

Understanding this changes things, doesn't it?

If it seems to you like I overstated it, I apologize, but...

it feels pretty crazy, radical and reckless to me.

What's more, realizing this about ourselves makes the fullness of The Greatest Commandment more powerful, too.  As I said earlier, I always saw it as two things:  1) Love God and 2) Love Others AS you would yourself.  But, like so many things Jesus said, there's a catch!  If you don't love yourself fully--even the deepest darkest parts-- then it's more difficult to love others that way, too.   And you're not allowing God to be God and love you the way only He can:  with total abandon.

So the kicker for me on this "step" of my spiritual journey is the paradox of loving God.   The Great Mystery of His love to me now is that instead of wondering and worrying about what He will think about "the dark side" of myself, or what Others will think, I am free to bring my sins out into His light and examine them.  When I do this, then, it's not so much about crawling my way back to God, and dressing myself in sackcloth and ashes.  Instead, it simply puts me in the position of a child gazing at an old favorite toy with an understanding that perhaps I've outgrown it.  I now see the toy I used to love playing with as something that suddenly doesn't bring me as much pleasure as it once did.  And instead of struggling with big words like CONFESSION and RECONCILIATION and CONTRITION and PENANCE,  I'm now free to amble up to God as his child, hold up my sin and say,

"Daddy, could you fix this, please?  I think it's broken."

And you know what?

He will.

And the even crazier thing is he'll give it back!  Only now it will be transformed. 

Don't believe me? 

Let's review: 

1.  I offered up my very SELF to God for Lent, in an effort to find JOY.

2.  In return, God gave me the most complete version of something I didn't even know I was missing...ME!

3.  He made the gift of loving mYself the missing ingredient to a recipe I already had for living a life of  JOY.

That, my friends,  is the radical gift of love only God can give. 

And you know something?  That radical kind of love is worth dying for.

Which is why I'm not in a spiritual desert right now.

I'm too busy living the Resurrection.

The Greatest Commandment, Part 1

I have a confession.

Here it is only the second week of Lent and what I want to do is help you (whoever you are) understand the purpose and process of "going into the desert" because I know from experience that the spiritual desert can be painful.  And lonely.  And frightening.

But there are those who've written so well on these topics that I certainly couldn't say it better, so I will just post their writings here for you to read in your own time.  Even now, these same two writings sustain me when I am having a desert experience.

They are this article and this one.

If you are "in the desert" right now, it is my hope and prayer that the above readings will help you as much as they do me.

 

But one thing I've learned recently is that while we're really only just beginning this Lenten (Growing!) Season, and while we are asked to start this Season in the desert like Jesus did, we can't always "be there" just because the church calendar says it.

I learned this because I'm not in the desert.  Not right now.  Not this year.

You see, I was recently reminded that the seasons of the church do not always match the seasons of our lives. After all, if someone you love dies on Easter, it may not feel like much of a Resurrection experience, right?   And there's certainly nothing wrong with that.  So the church calendar, I believe, is meant to keep us mindful of the seasons of our lives, by "acting out" these seasons collectively in the Church throughout the year.   Because while it's true that I'm not in the desert right now, it's also true that I've been in the desert when it wasn't even Lent at all!

So, if you are not spiritually in a desert place right now, that's OK.  

(Our desert time will come again soon enough.  God has His ways....)

But that's not really my confession.

My confession is that part of the reason I've been struggling to write since last week is because I've been trying so hard to write stuff other than what is on my heart because it's stuff I *know*  you need.

The other reason I've been holding back writing about what is on my heart right now is because what I have to share from my heart just seems so...obvious.  In fact,  it's kind of embarrassing I didn't see it sooner.

But I didn't.   Even though it seems as though I should have.

And my heart is telling me that since I never knew it, then maybe there's the off chance that you didn't either. 

Even though I *know* you probably did.

Still, today I've decided to stop fighting and I will just tell you what I've learned: 

The Greatest Commandment is JOY.

See?  You already knew it didn't you!

And I'm the dummy.  Again.  Nothing new there. 

You see, a few years back I took a class called "Catholicism for Dummies"  and I loved it!  I think we all (those of us in the class) did, because when you admit you're a dummy you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  It's such a freeing feeling!

ANYway,  one of the things we learned in Dummies was this little recipe for JOY:

If you love Jesus first,  Others second, and Yourself third,

you will have JOY in your life!

And it's true enough, I suppose. 

I mean, practicing humility before God and service towards others is, after all, at the very heart of what Christianity is all about.

With that recipe in my head,  I worked pretty  hard on loving Jesus by inviting Him into my heart and spending lots of time with His Word in prayer.  And I spent lots of time praying for and offering service to others when I could.  Don't get me wrong, there were still plenty of people doing more for others than me, and loving Jesus more than I did.  But I couldn't help but notice that many of them didn't seem to be living a life of great JOY, either.  At least no more or less than I was.

So I began to wonder if there was something I was missing. 

I didn't know what it was exactly.  What's more, I had no idea how to find it.  After all,  how do you find something when you don't even know what you're looking for?  I mean, I was searching for JOY and I thought I was going about it the right way...after all, I had the very recipe for it!

But I still wasn't living in JOY. 

It's important you hear me on this.  I was happy, plenty of the time.  It's hard to have a good marriage, healthy kids and a comfortable lifestyle and not be happy.  I mean, I wasn't exactly an ingrate.  I thanked God often for those gifts and more.  Sure, I'd grumble about the things I didn't have, but wanted and I'd long for more of what I did have sometimes.   But even so, overall, I'd say my happiness factor was just fine. 

But I believed that JOY was something more. 

To me, JOY was what I experienced in those rare moments in life when you see what you can only believe is a glimpse of heaven.  Like when you hold your newborn baby in your arms. 

The kind of JOY that makes the work and worry melt away.

The kind of JOY you can only sit and inhale. 

The kind of JOY that brings peace .

The kind of JOY that makes every. single. breath. special.

That's the kind of JOY I was looking for.   


(I mean really, is that so much to ask??  We ARE talking GOD here!!)

What's more, I was convinced that unlike the spiritual desert, JOY is not  merely a season of our lives, but a way of living.  Adding fuel to my fire, was the fact that it seemed like there were some people who knew the secret. 

Do you know the kind of  people I mean?    They don't worry, they don't speak ill of others.  They look for the good in everything and they always make you feel as though all of their time with you is about YOU.  They espouse Wisdom like only elders can, but they may not even be that much --if at all--older than you!   They are the Mother Teresas, or Pope John Paul IIs or Gandhis of our everyday life, but they manifest themselves in the person of  your grandma or your 2nd grade Sunday School teacher or your child's pediatric nurse.  They never seem flustered.  Or rushed. Or worried.   And every time you see them you get that warm fuzzy feeling  because you know they are going to look into your eyes, drink you into their warm JOYful world and make you feel good.

I mean they are SO easy to love.  Aren't they?   I LOVE people like that! 

But they also drive me nuts.

You know why?  Because more than any of the other wants I have, I want THAT.  Whatever it is.  Some may call it living in the moment.  Some may call it a Spirit of Charity.  Whatever you want to call it,  I'm pretty sure-- in fact I *know*-- it's what a life of JOY is!

But *knowing* what it is and finding it for yourself are not the same thing, it seemed to me.   My search was beginning to seem fruitless.  In fact,  I'd pretty much decided either my expectations were too high, or this was just something I wasn't meant to know.  I'd pretty much surrendered to the fact that in my lifetime, I may never be able to live JOY.  I may only be able to get a taste of it from time to time.  The rest of the time I'd still be pretty happy.  And maybe that is as good as it's going to get for me.

But I wanted to give it another shot.

So, this Lent, I began a journey of trying --yet again--to get to the heart of how to find, and live JOYfully, not just happily.  I asked God what I needed to "give up" in order to find JOY.  And I said I would do whatever it took. 

Did I need to give up my own plans for the future?  Or my dog?  My job (or lack there of, depending on your perspective)?  Or  was it my *gulp* (please God don't let it be, but still I have to ask) kids or husband?  

I really didn't know.  But I knew I couldn't get there on my own.  So in a moment of complete desperation, I offered to "give up" the biggest obstacle I could see in my way:  

I told God I wanted to "give up" ME for Lent.

Then I held my breath and waited.

No lightning bolts. 

(*Whew*  I took this as a good sign  because I had no idea what "giving  ME up"  would really look like, but as soon as I prayed it, I'll admit I wondered if the Good Lord wouldn't strike me down in that very moment!).

But  He didn't.   

What He did do, however, was work lightning fast getting me an answer.  Thankfully, I was ready to hear and see what it is He had to say.  So, almost as soon as I made that decision to "give ME up" for Lent.  I got a glimpse of what that would entail.

And I could hardly believe the crazy, radical, reckless abandon it would require of me.

***to be continued***

Waiting for God(ot)

Have you ever wondered what waiting looks like?

Maybe that's not the right question.   I mean, I guess we know what waiting looks like in our everyday lives.  After all, we wait in line at the grocery store, or the car wash or Redbox (or if you're me, McDonald's) quite frequently.  It's not exactly rocket science.  You just wait (and find some creative ways to distract yourself like fiddling with your cell phone, people watching, or reading the magazines near the checkout) until it's your turn.

Of course, then there are those times when  the ante is raised a bit and the amount of time we're going to have to wait turns unpredictable,  like when you're clipping along to see your relatives for the holidays and suddenly the interstate becomes a parking lot, or the airport is snowed in.  And in those instances...weellllllll, things get a bit more interesting, don't they?  Frustrations mount, boredom and restlessness set in, time seems to move  slowly-- if at all-- and we are just so. stuck. waaaaiiiiiiitttttting.

Still,  at least in those moments we can pick SOME point in the foreseeable future and know that our waiting will in all likelihood be over by then.  Because, after all, we probably won't be "parked" on the interstate for 24 hours.  And we probably won't be snowed in at the airport for a week.  Sure, it's a challenge and we have some obstacles to overcome, but ultimately we know we'll survive it, and from that we find the strength to endure.

But what about when the period of time we're going to have to wait is completely unknown?  And the "person" we're waiting for is invisible like God?  And what about when we're not even sure exactly what it is we're waiting for? 

What does waiting look like then? 

And how do we know when we're done?

These are the thoughts swirling around in my head as I try to make a comeback today with this blog. (Which seems like the perfect word to describe how I'm feeling right now about it-- blah-ugh). 

I'm having such a difficult time getting out of my own way! 

 

What I want to do here is spout all kinds of wisdom that will make you (and, more importantly, me!!) gasp and awe at just how brilliant I am, but the sentences and ideas swirling around in the vortex of my mind just aren't making much sense. 

 

So let me try to break it down a bit.

After several years of heartfelt prayer and many brilliant people crossing my path either through their friendship or their own writing, I've been made more aware in recent years of how I wait for God.  And how I *know* when it's His voice guiding me.  Please understand I'm not saying it's the right way, or the only way.  I just think I may have done it a lot sooner (wait for God, I mean) if someone could  have broken the process down into steps for me.  But at the same time it's not that easy to do (break it down, I mean)  because it happens so automatically that I often don't even realize it until the waiting is done!

In fact, it's a lot like trying to put into words, step by step,  the process of...breathing. 

That's it!  Breathing! That's a GREAT place to start.  And even as I write this I'm realizing I *know* it's the place to start because awhile back I read that one of the very names for God-- YAHWEH-- was not meant to be spoken at all, but breathed!   

SO, here we go: 

HOW I WAIT FOR (AND WALK WITH) GOD

by Lisa Christiansen

BREATHE - I think that starting with breathing just makes good practical sense because inevitably, if I'm having to wait for God, it's because I've been running for awhile--either in the wrong direction or without a guide-- and I'm suddenly lost.  And I don't know about you, but when I'm lost my good friend Panic is waiting right there ready to take over for me.  So my breath quickens.  And it's important to realize that even though I don't know what the Sam Hill is happening or where I went so wrong, I'm really OK at this very moment, and so I need to breeeeeeeeeathe. 

Deeeeeeep, soooooooothing breaths. 

The type of breaths that center me and make my mind STOP (or shut up, in my case) and just focus on the task at hand. 

*Breathe*     *Breathe*    *Breathe*    

Sounds simple, I know, but I can't even tell you how often  I'm really "panting", more than breathing!  But once I get focused, I sometimes  even get "fancy" with the breathing and breathe a word like "Spi-rit"  or "Yah-weh"  or "Yesh-ua"  For me personally, I like to breathe words that are not in English because my brain really is able to take a back seat then.  It just kind of surrenders and says, "All right, you lost me...I don't even know what you're saying!!"  Which is good, because in all likelihood, the reason I'm lost is because my head was working overtime and leading the way.

OK, so let's see... what else? 

OPEN YOUR EYES -  Yes, so now you know I'm a complete idiot and I run around with my eyes shut.  Well, OK, maybe I don't literally run around with my eyes shut, but just like when I start breeeeaaaaathing (instead of panting), this is usually about the time I realize I'd been going through the motions of life, without really seeing.    Kind of like when you pull into your parking space at work in the morning and realize (frighteningly!) that you don't remember anything from the last five minutes, but somehow you got there. You were obviously going through all the motions (stop at the light, turn the corner, avoid the pedestrians, etc. etc)  but you realize now--with a bit of shock!--that you really hadn't been paying attention at all.  Yep.  This is usually a good sign that it's time to bring the world back into FOCUS and just -- observe.  After all, God was watching you the whole time...you might as well be aware of what he was watching!

HOLD ON - When my boys were in Cub Scouts their Handbook contained suggestions of things to do if they ever got lost somewhere.  One of the suggestions was to hold on to something around them:  a tree, a lightpost, etc.  (To be honest I always thought this sounded silly because how is holding on to a tree helpful if you can't find your parents at the zoo??)   That being said, when I realize I'm spiritually "lost," I have learned that it's really helpful for me to go back to what I know for sure.  This means I keep myself busy with household chores and I usually write long lists of things to do, because somehow--and I can't say how or why exactly--but the mundaneness of all of this is helpful.  Perhaps because it's a reminder that maybe I'm not as lost as I first thought.  After all, if I'm doing things that are so familiar, then I can't be too far gone, can I?  CAN I???? (Go away, Panic...breathe, breathe)

LET GO - I know, I know.  I just said HOLD ON, and now I'm saying LET GO.  Before you call me a hyprocrite, let me warn you  it gets even trickier than that,  because the only way I can recognize the things I have to "let go" of,  is by "holding on" to the things I know for sure --at the same time!  It's kind of like the old game of "pat your head and rub your tummy." 

You see, while laundry, and cooking and vacuuming and dusting are "things" I can hold on to, the "things" I need to let go of aren't really "things" at all--fear, worry, doubt, anger--these are the types of things I contemplate as I'm carrying out mundane activities.  In fact, it's probably the very fact that what I'm doing IS so mundane that I don't have to think about it, and it frees up my brain to try and make that loooooooong and winding journey to my heart.  Along the way, I search to see what it was that lead me (or drove me) off the Path in the first place.  If it was fear, then I need to recognize it and LET THE FEAR GO.  Was it worry?  Doubt?  Anger? ,etc.  The list really goes on and on, but somehow when my hands are busy my mind can more properly comprehend if the things that veered me off course were things God would want me to hang on to, or let go of.

PRAY THROUGH EVERYTHING - This is not as hard as it may first sound.  Prayer is really just another word for communication with God. And when you Pray Through Everyhing, it really just means you are (trying to) keep a vigilant awareness of what God (in your heart/soul) is telling you.  Another name for this is "contemplation" and its a type of prayer that helps to keep you in the moment, (or the NOW as Eckart Tolle likes to say).   The thing is, as long as I do the hang on/let go exercise, I really am praying through everything!  Richard Rohr (a Franciscan priest and mystic) has a place in New Mexico called The Center for Action and Contemplation.  He named it that on purpose and says the hardest word to understand in the whole title is "AND!"  I couldn't agree more!  But like everything else...practice makes perfect.  This new level of awareness for me changed so  much of the "burden" of prayer as I use to know it.  Because I used to have mental lists of people to pray for, and I would try to remember to pray for them at night, but would inevitably fall asleep after only a few names!  Then I'd feel guilty and beat myself up, aye yi yi!  This practice of (contempletive/living) prayer is so much simpler...now at the end of the day (because I've been more aware all day of being in God's presence) I simply place my head on God's hand (in the form of my pillow) and drift into peaceful (prayerful) slumber.   And if you think God doesn't use that restful state to come to us in our dreams, you might want to think again!

IT'S ALL IN THE FAMILY - I want to be crystal clear about one thing here.  Just because I focus my life on Christ does not mean I think it is the only way to God.  However, it is the only way I know, because it's what I've been taught.  I like to think of Christianity as my love language with God.  That being said, the thing I love most about living a life in Christ is that this makes God our Father!  Astonishingly, this is so often (by myself, too) taken for granted, but it's one of the very reasons Christ was put to death--claiming kinship with God!   So that's why this reality --I am a Child of God!--more than anything else is what I think about when I am lost.  Sometimes this can soften things almost instantly and it certainly opens up dialogue (prayer) for me much faster.  If I'm angry at God, what would I say to someone in my family I was angry with?  (FYI--Keep your words real just like you would for your family.  God can handle it!)  Would I "hold on" to that anger forever or would I eventually "let it go"?  And if that's too intimidating to think about, I use Jesus or the Holy Spirit as my guide.  After all, the Christian God is a Triune God, and this is so convenient because if you find yourself flustered with one, pray to the other, your point will be heard!  (Plus, who can pass up a buy 1, get 3 deal???) 

SPIRAL -  Even though I'm ending with this, it's probably where for me the lid on the whole concept of a spiritual journey was really blown out of the water:  being taught what a "map" of a spiritual journey  might look like!  We are so focused as humans (especially in America) on GPSing everything--we mark our start point and our endpoint and try to figure out the shortest, fastest way there-- that we really have to unlearn that for a spiritual journey.  A spiritual journey is not linear, its circular!  If you do not know this (I didn't for a long time) your journey can seem so fruitless, because you find yourself back examining questions about yourself, God, the world, etc. that you thought you'd already answered!  This can be extremely frustrating and humiliating (which reminds me...more good news! ...if it's humiliating it could be another sign you're on the right track!)  Of course, if you are only going in "circles" you may want to try again, because the thing to realize here is while the journey is circular you should be either "climbing higher" in your questions about these things, or "going deeper" and finding new meaning in the questions.  As long as you are doing one (or both) of those, then you can be fairly comfortable in the knowledge that you are making progress! 

If you've hung on with me this far, I thank  you!  It was not easy and I feel as though I really just got done stating the obvious.  Like I just explained to you what your hair looks like.  (As if you didn't already know).  In fact, I feel about as ridiculous having described all of the above "steps" as the two main characters appeared to me in the novel  Waiting for Godot.  [Hence, the title for today's post (insert English major friends' smiles here)].  I haven't read it since high school, but much like today's post I thought it, too, was a huge Snooze Fest!   

Still,  I know that the makings of a spiritual journey-- and what it looks like when people are waiting for (and walking with) God-- wasn't always obvious to me, and perhaps if someone had taken the time to spell it out a little more clearly (even if its only as clear as mud) it may have helped.

Then again, there's always the possibility that since the journey is never really complete, perhaps I just needed to spend the last few days of writing (and re-writing and editing) this little reminder for myself!