. . . continued from yesterday
To cultivate and live a life of spiritual depth means consciously to become a spiritual spelunker. It involves, to borrow Henri Nouwen’s evocative term from the upwardly mobile 1980’s, taking the path of “downward mobility.” It entails descending into the cave of the heart where we most directly encounter “moments of confrontation with ultimate reality” where “decisive insights are born. ~ DJM
Spiritual Spelunking
• For one person the spelunking will mean discovering her buried treasure of light, giftedness, and belovedness.
• For one person the spelunking will mean learning why he is unable and unwilling to offer himself the love that he is so ready and good at offering others.
• For one person the spelunking will mean taking a long, loving look at a neglected wound or paralyzed grief and discovering there unimagined healing.
• For one person the spelunking will mean letting go of the judgment, anxiety, and insecurity that stands between him and his gay son or daughter.
• For one person spelunking will mean cultivating the self-love and courage that can counter the shame, obsessive concern about what others think, and the perfectionism that is secretly killing her.
• For one person spelunking will mean allowing himself to do less and be more, to see himself as worthy of pleasure, happiness, and joy.
• For one person the spelunking will mean to confront her diminishing physical and mental capacities and to practice the first beatitude “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
• For one person spelunking will mean an acute and ongoing sense of gratitude.
• For one person the spelunking will mean exploring her complicity in playing small, staying quiet, and a desire to offer her voice to the world.
• For one person the spelunking will mean learning how to forgive herself for what she has done or failed to do.
• For one person spelunking will mean facing and renegotiating with the fear that keeps him secure, safe, respected by others, but secretly miserable and unfulfilled.
• For one person spelunking will mean discovering a new commitment to the common deed, the works of mercy, and the commitment to put faith into action.
• For one person spelunking will mean stopping the excuses that prop up in-action and instead step out to make a small difference in caring for creation.
• For one person spelunking will mean learning to be more comfortable with uncertainty, not knowing, and the dark.
• For one person— who knows maybe for two or three or God-only-knows maybe all of us— spelunking will mean that the cave of the heart becomes the tunnel of love.
SPELUNK ON !!!