my monastic retreat, solitude and finding myself
i am now present to the magnificence of my life
i really try to stay away from touchy/feely/spiritual-y statements as i feel they tend to get in the way of an intellectually-driven quest. but at the same time, certain esoteric components of spirituality do jump out at me from time to time, as the above quote did.
i was minutes away from heading off to my monastic retreat for the weekend. ryan was dropping me off at the monestary in berkeley and we stopped to have lunch before i began my descent into the unknown. ryan indulged my desire to go to cafe gratitude which is entirely another story in and of itself, but while we were there i pulled out a card with this quote on it from the deck that was at our table. it seemed a fitting way to start my journey toward peace, joy and contentment.
it was like something/someone/whatever was saying: your life has already been designed with a purpose. it already has meaning. it’s already fulfilling. now you have to figure that out for yourself.
when i got to the monestary, i wrote the quote down in my journal and meditated on it for awhile. and then i wrote this:
i’m frustrated because i feel like i’m in a transition phase, but i don’t know to what or out of what. it’s probably the first time in my life i haven’t had a very real plan and i’m tempted to create a plan, a goal just for the sake of having something. i’ve felt unsettled, unsure for a while now but there seems to benothing to do about it since i can’t just move on to the next step as i’m not sure what the next step even is. …
… so is my answer to just look for peace among these feelings? to not try and figure out how to fix or make the feelings themselves go away but to just learn how to live a truly fulfilled life while dealing with all the “details”? how does that translate into mitigating the panic and stress i feel over things like job, career, finances, school, future, spirituality, etc? …
… but maybe i can to this retreat with the wrong focus. i came into it with the idea that i could de-stress and unwind by finding the answers to XYZ questions. when maybe the quest is learning how to live peacefully in harmony WITH the questions.
i was surprised at how soon after i arrived (within several hours) i felt like i was able to strip away the things, worries, concerns (aka - neurosis) that clutter my day-to-day mind and feel like i was beginning to see more clearly. like my mind and spirit were just looking for an excuse to stop obsessing. it made one of my favorite tozer quotes all that more pertinent:
most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position and always scretly afraid that we will miss the way. this is a tragic waste of truth and never gives rest to the heart.
August 26 2009 05:27 pm | catholicism and religion and san francisco