In less than a month, I’ll be in Dallas, Texas for the first session of my Contemplative Cohort, a year-long course offered by “Life in the Trinity Ministry”. My first assignment has been to read Richard Rohr’s 2009 book The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. I’ve read it once already, and like a good (and nervous) student, I’m planning on reading it again, so I’m going to send out a series of summaries and reflections on the themes of the book. 

As many of you know, I heard the call to go to this cohort while Lyle and I were at Lester Beach in August. It was a difficult week emotionally for us both, but listening to Suzanne Stabile’s retreat was like hope in the eye of the needle. Snooping on the website, I learned about their cohorts and felt a big inner “YES” that was hard to ignore. What was I to make of this? Was this just a geographical escape; an “I gotta get the hell out of Dodge” moment? I wanted to dismiss it as an impractical, ridiculous idea, but once I shared my green light moment, I’ve heard only “yes” from others during my discernment. I applied and eventually was accepted into the Contemplative Cohort, run by Joe Stabile  and Hunter Mobley. Starting in January, I’ll go to Dallas 4X in 2023. Thanks to Lyle my travel agent, the first ticket is already booked.

As I’ve been reading Rohr’s book in the early, dark moments of each morning, Earl has been sleeping on my lap. He symbolizes who I hope to become — resting in God, trusting that “all is well” and that I don’t need to do a thing because it’s already true. Earl is like the mystics Rohr writes about, but it’s sure not who I usually am! Relational conflicts leave me in a tired, emotional, tangled, messy heap. I am usually anything but restful as I anxiously seek and twist to find my birthright in God. 

But Rohr suggests maybe I’m already like Earl; that the gift of my birthright has already been given to me. True spirituality is not a search for perfection or control or the door to the next world. It’s a “search for divine union now.” It’s about waking up to God’s presence, already given to me in the “naked now”, in every sacred, present and even messy moment.

Earl’s contemplative rest on my lap redirects me every morning, and yet I barely dare to hope. Could it be true? It sure doesn’t seem true as the shadows tempt me to cynicism and hopelessness. I usually forget about God in the fear and distraction and uncertainty of life. I usually try to whistle in the dark, look the other way, just keep busy, or as Jesus put it, “build bigger barns”.   

But Rohr points me to Jesus, who found God here on earth in disorder and imperfection, and told us that we must do the same or we’ll never be content. Instead of working hard at it (my hardwiring), I’m invited to “joyfully surrender to God”. “When you can be present”, writes Rohr, “you will know the Real Presence”. He promises this is true, and it’s almost that simple. 

He writes that mature transcendence is an actual falling into God, which is “both an abyss and an utter foundation.” Paradoxically, the prayers of both Mary at the Annunciation (so full of promise) and Jesus in Garden of Gethsemene (so full of anguish) find a place. This is a paradox for sure, but Rohr says that in God, these prayers are not opposites. Everything belongs. Rather than finding anything, Rohr says it feels much more like Someone finds you. “You find yourself having been grabbed, and being Someone’s beloved.” 

This is the hope and desire that has kept me grounded in the past weeks and months. I don’t remember all the details when my struggles are the darkest. Like a kid, all I remember is, “I’m going to Dallas.” Though I haven’t yet set foot in the airport, the pilgrimage has already begun. The thought of it has given me hope and purpose, something to hang onto during the darkest nights. I’ve been caught between desire for union with God and the mysterious question, “Where is this going to take me?” I already feel like Someone is grabbing me and carrying me into a better future, fashioning God’s purposes in my struggles.

And so, at 61, I’m the learner again, exercising intellectual humility in my lost state. The struggles of 2022 have shown me I need to plug into something larger. In some weird kind of parallel universe, this will be my way of entering our community’s current study of Luke. Earl the mystic will show me the way.