Category: Beauty

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Savoring and Our Resistance

What is it like for you to savor? I’m not just talking about delicious food, but any profound experience of beauty or goodness or truth. When I look into myself and others, I find that it’s surprisingly hard to stay in the present moment and savor.

We can consume and devour, insatiably wanting more, ruining ourselves or others in our gluttony or greed or lust. When we do so, there might be a flitting moment of pleasure, but no joy. More often, we do not allow ourselves even to be in the present moment. Rather, we numb ourselves and live a disembodied existence – buried in work, binging on pleasures, or staring at a screen. We find it easier to be passive spectators than actively engaged children of God. After all, we have no skin in the game when we watch the news, distract ourselves with sports, play video games, or scroll through social media.

Meanwhile, God is always seeking to allure us and amaze us with experiences of truth and goodness and beauty. What is it like to slow down and take in the honor and delight of these moments? Not to take a picture and post it on social media – but just to savor?

I struggle to savor, even though I recognize that God has gifted me with a heart that intensely delights in truth and goodness and beauty. I perceive his handiwork in places that others often don’t. Yet it’s a gift that I resist. I’m starting to understand why: I’m afraid to suffer.

When I discover a surprising new truth, I feel an intense arousal and delight, followed by even more longing. It’s as though I am four years old again. I have such an eagerness to discover the truth and surrender myself to it. If I allow myself to stay in the experience, I’ll desire to keep learning more. I’ll ask “why?” a thousand different ways. I will eventually reach moments of disappointment or sadness. I may feel alone or rejected in a mocking world that doesn’t allow time or space for such questioning. For sure, I’ll discover the limits of human knowledge. No matter how much I learn, there will always be more that I don’t know. Savoring means tolerating both the intense joy of learning and the ache of not-yet knowing.

When I stumble on human goodness, I easily cry. It can be an inspiring scene in a movie or a book. It can be a heroic moment in the everyday life of a person that I’ve known for years. Suddenly I catch of glimpse of God’s goodness blazing brightly, and the tears flow. I feel intense joy and gratitude. I feel regret for not having noticed and delighted in this goodness before. I feel that painful ache – an ache for this person’s goodness to be celebrated, an ache for more goodness in myself and others. In the depths of my heart, I long to give myself freely and wholeheartedly in sacrifice. Yet so many other parts of me are terrified of feeling vulnerable and unprotected. I resist a tenderhearted trust in God for fear of what might happen. I readily relate to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in the first half of the story, but not yet in the second. I can be with him lying prostrate on the earth, begging the Father to let the cup pass. I desire also to be like Jesus standing with strength and willingly giving himself over to Judas and the mob. But I resist the vulnerability involved, and often find myself like the turtle yanking his head back into the shell – even when the shell is starting to rot on the inside.

I see beauty every day, when I take the time to notice it. Too often I feel an urge to rush past it, telling myself that I don’t have time to savor it today. When I do pause to take it in, there is so much praise and delight in my soul – and again that longing, that ache, that sense of the eternal Beauty that cannot be contained in this passing world. My intuition knows that this moment of beauty is only a glimpse, and that it is going to fade. There is such a mixture of sweetness and sadness there. It feels easier just to avoid the ache by avoiding the intensity of the beauty.

Yes, even though God created my heart for truth and goodness and beauty, I sometimes resist those experiences. I consume and devour, rather than slow down and savor. I rush on to the next thing, rather than pause and delight. I gravitate towards “rest” that is actually disengagement and numbing out – disconnecting from my five senses and my body rather than being more intensely present in the moment. It takes emotional and spiritual effort to rest in an embodied way, even when I have the time.

I experienced this resistance the other day in the face of a spectacular winter sunset. It was a Sunday evening after a very full week of work, including several overwhelming moments of frustration, powerlessness, anger, anxiety, fear, and shame. I just wanted to “chill” or “veg out,” as we often say. I turned to look around just as I was about to enter my house, and saw the entire western horizon painted with a dozen contrasting shades, all reflecting upon the ice and snow. And I just wanted to go inside and veg out. I fought an intense spiritual battle just to stand there for fifteen minutes. I kept feeling an urge to exit the scene, to pull out my phone, or to go in the house and move on to the next thing. But a wiser and deeper voice within me told me to stay and to savor.

I wept.

I wept at the stunning beauty. I wept over the resistance within my heart. I felt shame and frustration. My heavenly Father doesn’t mind my sins and struggles, but sometimes I cannot stand them.

We resist savoring because we don’t want to suffer; we don’t want to die; and we most definitely do not want to wait in hope – all the while feeling the painful longing of the “not yet.”

Isn’t it interesting that we sabotage our deepest longings? Part of us would rather be disembodied and joyless than fully alive with our five senses in the present moment. It is often the artist, the poet, the prophet, or the saint who calls us to our senses. I think of the intense delight and praise of Francis of Assisi as he savored God’s creation – all the while suffering in his longing to rebuild Christ’s Church. I think of the words of the poet T.S. Eliot in the early 20th Century: “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” We prefer to be “distracted from distraction by distraction.” Rather than desire and dream and risk, we will settle for “living and partly living.”

God has created us for so much more, and he sent his own Son to awaken these desires in our heart. The child Jesus will awaken these longings that his Father has placed in our heart. It’s a dangerous undertaking that will lead both him and us through suffering and death – and to eternal life. Will we follow?

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Learning from St. Benedict

This three-month period of Sabbath renewal has been a blessing to me – including my monastic companions here at a Benedictine monastery. Their Rule and way of life offer so many lessons, and I will be glad to share some of them in the weeks ahead.

I had the joy, last month, of traveling to Oregon to join in the celebration at Mount Angel Abbey as five monks made their solemn profession of vows. I wept as I watched the monks freely and wholeheartedly giving themselves over in vows of obedience, stability, and ongoing repentance in their faithfulness to the Benedictine way of life.

The vow ceremony includes stunning rituals that invite the monks into a dying and rising with Jesus. I felt deeply stirred with desire and longing, as Jesus continues inviting me to open my own heart to both sorrow and joy as I learn to abide in love and truth. Over the past four years of my life, I have learned again and again that I cannot experience the intensity of joy without also welcoming the depths of sorrow; I cannot exalt in the surprise of the resurrection without a willingness to enter the heartache of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The Lord keeps gently inviting me to open my heart freely and fully, assuring me that those who embrace poverty and mourning will be truly blessed by the Father. The vow ceremony gave me so much encouragement and assurance of God’s covenant faithfulness to his promises, and was truly a taste of the feasting we will all share in the Kingdom.

The abbot presided over the vow ceremony – he who will be a longstanding spiritual father to these men in their years ahead. He beckoned them forward lovingly and then asked them what they were seeking. Their response: “I desire to share in the sufferings of Christ in this monastery until death, that I may also share in his glory.”

He spoke to them of the seriousness of the covenant they were about to enter: “I set before you a way of life, which images that of the Lord himself.” It is a renunciation and a dying, but also a claiming of the victory of the Cross. They freely responded “I do” to their vows, and then, one by one, read and displayed to the congregation their signed covenantal letter. The abbot tenderly took each one by the hand and led them to the altar, where they put pen to paper and sign their statement.

Then came the Suscipe prayer, which moved me so deeply that I am still returning to it in my prayer a month later. The five solemnly professed monks processed up the aisle and three times paused to extend their arms out horizontally and cry out to the Father: “Accept me, O Lord, as you have promised. Accept me, and I shall live. Do not disappoint me in my hope!”(Psalm 119, verse 116). I was struck by their posture in making this prayer. It evokes Jesus’ dying on the Cross, but they are also presenting themselves like little children begging daddy to pick them up and embrace them. They are choosing to be totally vulnerable, to risk all, to open themselves up in hope – and surrendering themselves into the Father’s hands. How often have I resisted abiding in hope – it definitely hurts to desire but not yet fully possess. It feels so much easier to distract myself from the longing than to stay in it! Over the years, my heart has both longed for and resisted being taken up into the Father’s hands. This attitude makes sense – given that I have often felt betrayal and powerlessness. The ritual stirred a fire in my heart that melted much of my ambivalence.

My mask was only beginning to be drenched with my tears as they proceeded with the ancient burial ceremony. In front of me this whole time had been one of five black cloths draped over the pew. The five newly professed monks prostrated themselves on the floor as the mentor who had guided them on their journey draped one of these burial cloths over each of them. Meanwhile we somberly chanted words that echo Colossians 3:3 “I have died, and my life is hidden with Christ in God. I shall not die but live, and proclaim the works of the Lord!”

The abbot proceeded with the offertory of the Mass – offering to God not only gifts of bread and wine, but these five newly professed monks. All was to be transformed by Jesus, taken up into the mystery of his dying and rising. The abbot incensed not only the gifts on the altar, but the five prostrate (and “buried”) monks. As all of us priests gathered around the altar for the Eucharistic prayer, the five monks remained in front of us, beneath the veil of death.

Following the Great “Amen,” as the congregation rose to pray the Our Father together, the schola joyfully chanted, “All you who sleep, awake, awake! Rise from the dead! Christ has enlightened you!” And the monks rose to new life with Christ. My heart soared with joy as I watched each of them re-emerge into the light.

The life of a monk is an already-but-not-yet. Even now they claim a foretaste of both the dying and rising of Jesus. Even now they gain a glimpse of his glory. I certainly enjoyed a taste of the goodness of God’s Kingdom that Saturday morning on the Mount of Angels in Oregon, as I shared the experience with them. Such joy never lingers forever, but reminds us of the good things to come!

You can view livestream footage for the entire vow ceremony here.

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Always Ready for a Party

Authentic hospitality is one of the greatest human experiences. There is the literal hospitality of receiving and hosting a guest with a sense of delight and dignity and belonging. More importantly, there is the day-to-day openness to the experience of receiving and being received, the surprising delight that can arise in encounters that cause us to feel more authentically human and more authentically Christian. You just never know when a small foretaste of the heavenly wedding feast might unexpectedly manifest itself! But we easily miss the moment if we are not abiding in love and truth.

I’m currently in the midst of a 3-month sabbatical, and gratefully receiving the hospitality of Benedictine monks. The importance of hospitality is actually written into the Rule of Saint Benedict, that brief but adaptable treasure trove of wisdom that still inspires people of all faiths even 1,500 years after he wrote it. Benedict instructs his monks, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Some of my happiest memories of childhood are moments of hospitality. I was recently asked to reflect on experiences of wholeness in my story – when I most deeply felt a sense of delight, belonging, and justice. It was a challenging exercise at first! My story includes much deprivation and going it alone. But with prayer for illumination, my memories turned to my grandparents’ home, their joy and excitement at seeing me every time I arrived, the warm embrace, the twinkle in their eyes, the offering of food or drink or toys they knew that I enjoyed, the total sense of belonging and safety. Or I thought of Christmas gatherings with extended family – the laughter, the acceptance of everyone present, and the material and emotional abundance, the ache for the moment to last forever.

During my college seminary years, I met a few friends from the South, and came to appreciate their constant readiness to show hospitality to guests. It felt dignified and important to me, and became something I’ve valued over the years. Whether my years in communal living or my years in a rectory, I’ve relished the opportunities to show hospitality to guests. Planned gatherings are fun enough, but the best moments have been the unexpected parties. I’ve learned to ensure that I have a few things on hand to be up for the occasion. As I sometimes quip, I like my living space to be ready to go “From Zero to Party in 10 Minutes.” People have appreciated the gesture more than once.

Truthfully, though, I am still very much learning the height and breadth and depth of human hospitality. There are various versions of it, not all of them equally great. There have been times where my hospitality was more about projecting an image or feeling the pressure to perform, rather than simply “being with” the guests. There have been times where it was more about subtly grasping at my own unmet needs than about serving those I was hosting. And there is my frequent tendency to get disengaged, to check out of the present moment or withdraw emotionally into my own space of isolation – and then my connection with others is diminished or lost.

Speaking more universally, when it comes to hospitality of the heart, being open and receptive to unexpected “Jesus moments” with others, I cannot truthfully say that my heart is always ready. It’s one thing to think ahead and have a few items stocked up in the pantry. It is so much more challenging to abide in love and live wholeheartedly in the present moment.

Jesus was a human being who knew how to experience hospitality – how to receive it and how to give it. There is a great vulnerability in authentic hospitality, a tender willingness to enter into intimacy. We cannot give well if we have not learned how to receive. We don’t often ponder this point, but Jesus was quite willing to receive hospitality –from the very beginning.

God though he was, Jesus began his human existence in humility and obscurity, depending vulnerably on the tender care of his mother and foster father, taking in the delight and awe showed by so many guests at his birth: the shepherds, the magi, and the angels. He spent thirty of his thirty-three years learning how to receive. Even in his public ministry, he still allowed himself to be vulnerable and receive. I think of the woman with the alabaster jar in Luke 7 – weeping, kissing his feet, and anointing him with costly perfume. Jesus does not squirm or resist, as many of us probably would. I think of Jesus’ apparently frequent visits to Bethany, cultivating a deep friendship with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha – including a willing reception of their hospitality. He even goes there during Holy Week, shortly after his entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Even on Holy Thursday, as he enters his “Hour” of suffering, Jesus reaches out to Peter, James, and John – asking them whether they would be with him in his sorrow. And of course, there is his belonging to and receiving from his heavenly Father, as Jesus regularly withdraws – not in isolation or disengagement – but into vulnerable and intimate relationship.

Drawing from that sense of joy and belonging and abundance, Jesus showed hospitality so beautifully. One of the strongest “accusations” against him was that he welcomed sinners and dined with them! Jesus attuned to people’s hearts, noticing the desire and the movement of the Holy Spirit there (or the hardness of heart and resistance!). When there was movement, he stopped and lingered and invited them into relationship. They felt seen by him. They felt understood by him. They felt welcomed and delighted in by him. They were loved as they were, and they also realized that he was committed to their well-being and wasn’t going to fudge or fake things in the relationship. I think here of the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus, Matthew, and Peter (at so many moments!).

I have always cherished hospitality, and intuitively understood how central it is in the human experience. I have not always appreciated the invitation to vulnerability that is there, the call to give others access to my well-guarded heart, the call to be present and engaged, to be open to unexpected surprises, to notice what God is doing in the hearts of others, to appreciate their uniqueness and to accompany them step by step in becoming who they are (versus who I want them to be!). To the extent that I abide and stay open to hospitality, I truly get to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” – even now amidst this sojourn through a valley of tears. Such moments never last, but they are truly good – a promise and foretaste of the Day in which the joyful feasting we experience together will never end, but only become ever more delightful and more real.

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The Conversion of St. Monica

Another rerun! This post was first submitted on March 10, 2019.

Monica is an immensely popular saint, particularly among those who fret about the sins and sufferings of their adult children.  Many a mother has fantasized, “If only I could be like Monica…If only I could pray hard enough and shed enough tears to convert my children as she converted Augustine…” In our age of addictions, no wonder she is so popular!

But perhaps she is popular for the wrong reasons. I am convinced that, if we knew her whole story, we would discover a major conversion of her own. Her son Augustine wrote his Confessions, in which he tells one of the most stunning conversion stories of all time. He periodically alludes to his childhood and his parents. Knowing what we know today about sexual addiction and addictions in general, it’s not hard to start connecting the dots. I think Monica’s greatest victory was not the deathbed conversion of her pagan husband Patricius, nor even the tear-filled conversion of her son Augustine. No, her greatest victory was her own recovery from codependency.

Consider the legendary words of the bishop St. Ambrose, when she entreated him with tears about the sins of her son Augustine: “Speak less to Augustine about God and more to God about Augustine.” Wow. I can relate. It is not uncommon for a priest to hear something like this: “Father, you need to help me to fix my children!” Well okay, they don’t usually put it that bluntly. But many mothers and fathers feel like their personal self-worth is on the line. If their children sin or fail, they themselves are failures. That’s a lie.

It is one thing to grieve over the sins of our loved ones. Destructive behaviors are sad indeed. It is another thing to feel personally responsible. The apostle Paul reminds us that each disciple must carry his own load (Galatians 6:5). We cannot fix other people’s problems or manage their lives.

Trying to do so leads to an array of unhealthy and destructive behaviors: perfectionism, judgmental or self-righteous attitudes, bitterness, resentment, depression, hopelessness, avoidance of conflict, self-loathing, self-punishment, manipulative comments, shaming or blaming postures, trying to “fix” others, unsolicited advice, and the like. All the while one ignores the pain and grief of one’s own heart.

These “codependent” attitudes easily thrive in homes where addictions dominate. Monica was married to an addicted husband and reared an addicted son. It is not a stretch to imagine her battling with codependency on her path to sainthood.

In our pornographic culture, I have had conversations now with hundreds of men who have a wound of sexual addiction, whose behaviors are very much like those of Augustine and his father Patricius. Some of those men, like Augustine, have found liberation and peace as they walk the path of recovery. As they heal, they get in touch with their father wounds. Often, their fathers were like Patricius – unfaithful to their mothers, verbally or physically abusive, alcoholic, absent, etc. Recovering addicts begin to realize that their unwanted behaviors are not the real problem; they are only the tip of the iceberg. Lurking beneath are old and unhealed wounds. As prevalent as father wounds are, I am finding it a nearly universal truth that where there is a sexual addiction, there is an unhealed mother wound. I definitely see mother wounds in Augustine’s story.

Let’s tread carefully here. Acknowledging these wounds is not about casting blame on father or mother for the sins of their children. No one gets into an addiction without himself choosing or agreeing at some point along the way. The great Jimmy Buffet teaches us that we are ultimately responsible for our own sins. Additionally, sometimes children are blocked from receiving what they really need for reasons that are not the fault of the parents.

In Monica’s case, it’s not hard to imagine her playing the victim card, casting herself as a silent (or not-so-silent) martyr, subtly manipulating or shaming as she tries to guilt her husband and her son into doing the right thing. As I hear of the deathbed conversion of Patricius, I wonder just how much joy and liberation he felt in his baptism, versus a reluctant agreement mainly to appease Monica. God knows the truth.

Filling in the blanks, I think Monica’s conversion story goes something like this:

Monica is mired in misery, abused and betrayed by her husband and repeatedly wounded by the wanderings of her son. Probably the abuse and mistreatment began with her own father, and she learned how to cope from her own codependent mother. Like so many in her shoes, she fantasizes about how blessed her life would be if only her husband or her son would change. She is hyper-aware of their behaviors and constantly tries to manage the damage. Eventually, she learns to stop lecturing or shaming or manipulating. She heeds the godly advice of Ambrose and talks more to God about Augustine. She talks to God more and more often. Augustine doesn’t seem to change. She harbors a good deal of bitterness against the men in her life, yes, even against God. She won’t admit that, because good Christian women don’t get angry, certainly not at God! Still, she meditates often on the sufferings of Christ and of his mother Mary. She is often moved to tears – sometimes without knowing why. Finally, like the weeping women of Jerusalem, she learns that Jesus wants her to weep for herself (Luke 23:28). She realizes that, when Jesus weeps over the destruction of Jerusalem, he is weeping also for the ruins of Monica’s heart, so often trampled down by others, so often neglected and ignored by herself. She starts learning that God is big enough to handle Augustine’s problems – far better than she can. She learns to surrender and to live in the present moment. Little by little, her heart, numb for decades, begins to thaw. She trembles and gasps and sobs as she feels God attuning her to the swirling anger and torrential sadness of her own heart. But she finally believes that her heart matters and that those who mourn are truly blessed. She lets it happen. Like King David in the Psalms, she pours out her heart to God – all of it. She surrenders all in faith. She begins discovering an unfettered joy and peace, even as she sheds more tears than ever. She is finally free.

It could have happened that way. God knows the truth.

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Understanding “Capital Sins”

We are all quite familiar with the seven capital sins: pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Perhaps we learned about them in a classroom setting; certainly we have encountered them in ourselves and others!

Today, I would like to invite each of us to do something we normally don’t do – to feel deeply the Father’s kindness toward us in our weaknesses and our repeated tendency towards sin. Then, with Jesus, we can allow ourselves to be curious about these inclinations that we experience.

As an accomplished sinner myself and as one who offers pastoral care to sinners, I find that we fallen humans tend to feel a great deal of shame and contempt around our weaknesses, our vulnerability to sin, and the details of our acting out. We tend to despise any part of ourselves that feels inclined to think or speak or act in one of these ways. Whether an inclination to numb out in slothfulness, to overeat, to compare ourselves with others and feel sadness, or to enter the realm of sexual fantasizing, we just wish that it would all go away. Shame incites us to see the broken pieces of our heart as worthless garbage to be incinerated, rather than as bearing the image of God and beckoning us back to the heart of the Father.

A deeper understanding of the capital sins – what they really are and why they are called “capital” in the first place – leads us to seek traces of God’s goodness even in those places of our heart that feel totally beyond his reach.

If we speak with greater accuracy, these seven impulses are not “sins” in the full and proper sense. They are tendencies or vulnerabilities in us. They are called “sins” because they come from sin and incline us toward sin. In Catholic theology, we speak of “concupiscence” as a wound in us, a strong inclination toward sinfulness that is part of the human experience as a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve. This wound of concupiscence is, of course, exacerbated by our own choices in life. The more we sin, the more we want to sin. The seven capital sins can then be understood as seven different ways that fallen human beings experience a strong inclination toward sin. We do not find it difficult to allow ourselves to indulge in any one of these seven inclinations. Jesus speaks about the wide gate and easy road that leads to destruction – in contrast to the narrow gate and difficult road that leads to life.

Indeed, we probably best know these tendencies as the “seven deadly sins” – because they easily become toxic, harmful, and deeply destructive. Unchecked, they rupture our relationships with God, others, and self, and ultimately lead towaerd death in every sense – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Each of us is created in the image and likeness of a God who is love – an eternal communion of persons in glorious relationship. We innately understand just how destructive our acting out becomes – and the devil is all too eager to bury us in shame. His endgame is to tear away as many of us as he can and get us to agree to never ending isolation, misery, and torment.

But why are these seven tendencies called “capital sins”?  The word “capital” comes from the Latin caput – which means “head,” but can also mean “source.”  John Cassian and Gregory the Great reflect on how each of these impulses becomes a source of sinfulness in us – not sins in and of themselves, but, if unchecked, strong impulses that lead us down the road of perdition.

The thing is, the devil cannot create. He is not God. He can only use the good and beautiful things God has created in an attempt to lie and steal and destroy. Ignatius of Loyola refers to the devil as “the enemy of human nature.” He absolutely despises us. He hates the glory of God that shines in each of us. That is where he attacks the hardest – which in a backwards way teaches us an important lesson: if we look deeply into our hearts at the places where we experience the most intense attack in the form of the seven capital sins, there we will find God’s glory the most present. Why else would the devil attack us so intensely there?

In other words, at the core of each of these seven capital sins in us, we find amazingly good desires and needs that God has placed in the human heart. Yes, these seven tendencies can easily become sources of sinfulness that have great potential to lead us astray. But they can also be deeply helpful clues to lead us back to God!

That is where tender kindness, childlike wonder, and holy curiosity come in. Rather than shaming myself, I can start noticing what is happening in my heart. My anger is there whether I like it or not! Yes, I can allow it to leak out in aggression toward others or myself. But it can also be an invitation into the fullness of God’s truth and justice, and an awakening of my prophetic identity in Christ. In my envy I can notice the things my heart deeply aches for – often things the Lord deeply desires for me – but only if I am willing to allow myself to feel the heartache of longing and waiting. In my lust I can notice all kinds of desires and needs – to be desired and chosen, to be safe and secure, to be embraced, to be known and understood, or to be loved as I am, (notice that none of these is really about sex!). In my sloth I may discover much less “laziness” and much more shame and fear – an urge to hide and isolate and turn away when what I actually need is real relationships, in which I can be cared for precisely where I feel the weakest and most vulnerable.

Whatever capital sins we find to be our “personal favorites” are also very likely the places we will find the deepest and holiest longings of our hearts –places in which our loving Father desires us to experience our true dignity, meaning, and purpose as his beloved children. Each of us can become “disciples” – yes, in the sense of discipline, but even more so by allowing Jesus to help us become students of our own heart, which is created in the image and likeness of God and declared by him to be “very good.” If we open ourselves to that experience of authentic discipleship, the places of our deepest sorrow and struggle will become the very places that lead us back to the heart of the Father.

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Learning to Saunter

Have you ever had that experience of always assuming you knew what a word meant, only to discover that it actually bears quite a different meaning?

I had one of those moments with the word “saunter.” I had encountered it often in books, usually with the same phraseology: “He sauntered in.”  To me, in context, it always felt synonymous with “strutted,” and I never bothered to look the word up.

But one day I was on vacation, a guest at the home of friends, reading one of those life-coaching plaques in their home (I’ll leave it to your imagination to guess which room of the house it was in).   The plaque gave dozens of tidbits of advice for joyful living.

One of those sage counsels was “Saunter aimlessly.” It didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the phrases on the plaque. “Strut aimlessly”??  I suddenly found myself hearing the admonition of Inigo Montoya:

“You keep using that word – I do not think it means what you think it means…”

So I got out my dictionary. Actually, let’s be honest – I got out my smart phone, which is ironic, because the smart phone is quite possibly one of the greatest disrupters of sauntering in all of human existence.  But it gets the job done as a dictionary. The scales fell from my eyes as I read the following:


saun·ter
/ˈsôn(t)ər/
verb
1. walk in a slow, relaxed manner, without hurry or effort.

It was so much more than an “aha!” moment. It was one of those divine taps on the shoulder. Perhaps I had misunderstood this vocabulary word all my life because I am not so skilled at sauntering.

Well actually, that’s not entirely true. Deep down, my heart LOVES to saunter. Have you seen those Family Circus installments that trace little Billy’s meanderings with a dotted line? I definitely have a little child inside that absolutely delights in sautnering – exploring the nooks and crannies of God’s creation in a spirit of curiosity, awe, and adventure. But many other parts of me rise up to squelch that childlike longing.

My workaholic and perfectionistic tendencies don’t tend to leave space for little Derek to saunter. I experience restless urges within me – an urge to “get caught up,” and urge to be constantly productive, and an urge to meet the impossible expectations of others. My inner critic warns me that there is no time for such childish pursuits. If I stop to smell the roses, an inner alarm goes off, warning me to move on to the next thing or raising my internal level of guilt about being selfish or lazy.

I apparently did not know the meaning of the word “saunter” during my four years living in Italy, but it was often right there in front of me. I recall feeling frequently annoyed at the locals, stuck behind them as they strolled aimlessly down the sidewalk – on those few Roman streets that are actually wide enough to have sidewalks. Somehow one Italian could effectively block an eight-foot wide space, always walking down the middle, often smoking a cigarette, and veering randomly to the left or the right as they sauntered along without a care in the world. Italians are not exactly known for efficiency or industriousness, especially the further south one goes. There I was, descended from neurotic Northern Europeans – and even among my own people bearing a legendary reputation for productivity and overachieving. Needless to say, I did not blend in, nor did I try to. I found ways to beat the system and accomplish the tasks I felt driven to do – but not without resentment and frustration. I could have learned some lessons from those Italians.

In truth, we cannot live as humans without sauntering sometimes. Our ultimate purpose in life is to abide with the Lord forever. Each one of us carries deep within us a yearning for rest. If we do not honor that yearning, it will find ways to express itself – often in fruitless fantasies or mindless escapes that do not actually refresh us.

Desiring our happiness and wellbeing, God commands us to engage in Sabbath rest. He rests on the seventh day and invites us to participate in his rest. Easier said than done!

I remember the summer of 1995, at the end of my freshman year of college. I felt a conviction that, as a student, my labor was academic – which means observing Sunday as a day of rest from my studies. I made the decision not to do homework on the Lord’s Day. I thought it would be incredibly hard to “get my work done” without utilizing Sunday. I was wrong there. Those adjustments proved easy to make, and helped me be more intentional about my time the rest of the week. There was no challenge academically. Rather, what surprised me was how exceedingly difficult it proved to spend the newly found time on Sunday in real rest and rejuvenation. I found my heart restless as it tried to indulge in various kinds of entertainment or pleasure.  My prayer felt scattered and distracted. It surprised me that rest could be so hard!

I remember a similar restlessness on many of my retreats over the years – worrying about “doing it right.” I eventually learned that the Lord would bless me regardless, and now I cherish my retreat days each year. They are one of the rare times in the year that I seem to feel greater freedom to saunter. At so many other times, there is something inside of me that seeks to sabotage authentic rest. It doesn’t feel safe to be blessed and to receive. There is a vulnerability in it that is so wonderful and so terrifying at the same time.

I think “sauntering” can be even harder for me, because sauntering still includes a certain sense of movement and purposefulness, albeit in a more carefree manner.  I tend to set myself up with impossible tasks and then always feel in a hurry, always under stress. I walk fast. I drive fast. I plow through tasks. I am disciplined and driven. In that setup, there is little permission to move at a slower pace, to welcome interruptions as opportunities to receive, to wonder at and delight in the amazing beauty that surrounds me.

These moments of sauntering, puttering, meandering – whatever the right term is – are so essential for me to feel safe, to be open and receptive, to notice and to care, to be in awe and to wonder, to learn, to grow, to be generous, to appreciate, to be grateful, to affirm and encourage others, and to praise God. I am so much less human if I do not allow space for sauntering in my life.

Thankfully beauty often breaks through in spite of my defenses. It sneaks in the back door and catches me by surprise.  At those moments I have a choice to make. Will I rush on to the next thing and miss an opportunity to abide with the one who loves me so much? Or will I be kind to myself, allowing myself to take in the goodness and beauty, to savor it, to delight in it, and to praise the God who gives such good gifts?

Jesus, teach me to “saunter aimlessly” and to learn to be at peace when I do so.