compass

“...when fears shall be in the way and nature faints,
when all the interest that has been given to life
by what was of the world shall be exhausted,
what then can we bring out of the stores of this life
that shall be adequate for our necessities?”

~ Edmund Quincy Sewall, On Spirituality of Character.


dark glass

Milder months widened sights to lengthened days and warmth. Aromatic trees and sunlight provided spaces for musing and ambitious tries at setting dreams forth. Many pounds of bread have been cast upon many waters, with highest hopes. Aspiring and casting has persisted through darkest cold, over and again. But time passes as it slips away. Following suit, resources run thin. As the ground of being erodes, physical supplies of inspiration are increasingly expensive, hoarded in abundance by fewer and fewer. For a worker of modest means, tenuous housing and employment, it is difficult to gauge the extent of existing rations. How far along on this voyage? How close the destination? No amount of striving and straining suffice, as I can will myself to only so much achievement. “For now we see through a glass, darkly,” the ancient Apostle Paul famously observed; in this life, “now I know only in part.” I may never know real and satisfying success, but I know the value of rigid hope. “When will I?” becomes “will I ever?”- as the challenge intensifies, racing against time. Yet there remains this moment, as I write these very words. Potential is meant to be realized. It is as vital to be ready as it is to be willing.

Ready and willing. One can be ready, but unwilling- without the drive to carry plans out to completion. And one can be willing, but unready- unprepared to take best advantage of opportunities. But how to be both, and where to look? Not finding helpful support, I’ve had to be my own compass. Indeed, I know the direction of my pilgrimage destination, however not having the material wealth to assure stability, it’s been necessary to find inventive ways to build my own spiritual and mental reserves.

Looking at my intensely-labored worklife of many years, I’ve only recently realized some discouraging truths. Because I’d joined the workforce very young, and then also had to change careers at a young age, I thought my few experiences were holding back my progress to better employment. After a very prosperous time in graduate school, from scratch I built a consistently solid history of successful projects, both shoulders to the wheel. Building anything meaningful takes time. In the process, countless friendships developed along with all the work- both professionally and by volunteering. A great many stories, to be sure, filling dozens of journals. What I’ve seen is that attributes such as achievement, track record, attitude, communication, and presentation are exponentially less valuable to the search than whether or not search committee members know you or have some personal interest. The disillusionment is dizzying, witnessing the “Peter Principle” theory manifest in so many places. What the rejections don’t do, is diminish my ambitions and my appetite for excellence- yet there is no assurance of success, despite having an accurate compass.

Last month, I found myself turning the documentation I’ve made during various professional projects into a personal archival resource. Indeed, I’ve always remained a photographer at heart. An extensive application process required a seven-part dossier which took three weeks for me to assemble, edit, and refine. As my fortunes would have it, I was rejected in a suspiciously rapid four business days- uncharacteristic for that institution. Their door was likely never open to begin with. But the disappointment aside, my construction of an electronic archive of nearly twenty productive years led me to think about inner resources. Obviously, there are the kinds of physical resources we can procure for ourselves as we are able. We purchase our necessities, from housing to food to clothing to things related to transportation, recreation, and so forth.


storehouse

For this context, I’m thinking about a soul’s storehouse of resources. These are absorbed through our experiences, both outside of our influences and by our own intentions. Within these experiences are reactions to circumstances and thoughts. The action of seeking the respite of refuge is a mixture of material and spirit. For example, the Boston Athenaeum is a well-stocked library and a beautiful environment. I can barely afford the membership fee, but I keep it going as I can; the resources are profoundly valuable to me. While I regroup and try to find nourishment, I’m also gleaning insights, thinking of what I need to be able to return to the chaotic fray better equipped and stronger. The quotation, above, by Edmund Sewall is something I discovered in the manuscript room at the Athenaeum, while poring over this and several related works.

The source material I absorb becomes part of the guiding and assuring repertoire within. These vital syntheses essentially provide direction from a nonmaterial center. Admittedly I have not completed my accomplishment of this art, but I have a few methods based upon my practical experience. There is no shortcut, and there is a lot of writing involved. Study and the gathering of knowledge, reflection, and a contemplative mindset; silence, observation, practice, and a sense of setting oneself apart. These are all factors, and by the latter, I mean being able to step away from the pack- from detrimental sameness. It’s the lonelier road, but necessary for the distinguishing of reflective impressions from the fads and formulae. By so doing, it is possible to develop one’s own language, imagery, and ideas.


compass

A standard, portable compass is a physical, directional instrument. The guiding needle points to “magnetic north,” and by orienting the dial to match the needle, navigators can determine their bearings. Giving some consideration to the metaphor, I’ve been carrying a compass through my mundane errands, and to my closed-in, windowless workplace. I’m able to figure out where east-to-the-ocean is, or northeast-to-Acadia. I looked at an opaque office wall and said, "that’s north." A friend of mine who builds houses saw me studying a map with a flat compass. He talked about “project north,” which is a construction term used for workable approximation. Of course, I appreciate all such terminology, imagining personal application.

Oriented toward a north point beyond myself, adversities cause me to scramble for direction. In these times that are long established as “post truth,” an especially strong sense of discernment is needed to hold direction. Alongside the scholarly pursuits and the moorings of spiritual maturity, the critical sensor remains the tuned interior compass. Indeed, integral to the pursuit is continued cultivation of inner resources. That is an everyday nurture, and there can still be more missed crossroads- surely reminders of imperfection. Further still, the need to continue this formation intensifies with the rejections, setbacks, and desolation. More than an inner compass is needed, but in addition an inner generator. I’ve got to keep generating my own power and light- for myself and for the support of others. Hatching up ways to do so happens with fits and starts.

How to stay inspired? How to find humor? I know the sources to tap into, but how to do that better? These concepts are tied to value: personal value, moral value, and the value of a course well run. In addition, the value of daily life. There’s no shortage of opportunities to try savouring the commonplace, complete with my coarse cold sandwiches, tedious routines, boring meetings, and predictable responses. Up against all that, I alter my routes to and from work, among other things. Find the tiny gems in the tedium. Notice the skies, as the seasons change. Taste the maple syrup in the coffee. Don’t miss imagery in reflective surfaces. Sharpen that pencil slow enough to notice the spiraled wood shavings. Ponder the hiddenness of God, and how that challenges the human soul. San Juan de la Cruz observed that Divine wisdom is darkness to the mind.


in measure

For a couple of days in the Boston Athenaeum manuscript room, I studied the fascinating work by Thomas Brooks (17th C.) called The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod. The full title is a paragraph’s worth, and the spirit of the text is a lot more upbeat than a non-reader might assume. Speaking to his times, Brooks assembled as much assurance and inspiration as he could conjure up for his mid-1600s English readers. A notably poetic passage I found begins with Stars shine brightest in the darkest night. I looked up from his ancient pages and toward the vaulted windows facing Beacon Street, with a breath, after his little mercies are great mercies... the higher the mountain, the gladder we shall be when we are got to the top of it. Brooks referred to memory as a potential holy ark, a heavenly storehouse. The archaic words from about 350 years ago told me to hang on; joy comes to those who endure.

The contents of a “heavenly storehouse,” like Sewall’s spiritual provisions, are not resources that can be purchased. Drawing from sculpted inner deposits, intangible necessities can be procured. These include retained and treasured consolations. I like to call upon cherished words of past mentors; these recollections help return the brilliance of those whom I miss very much. They continue to teach me, though my enshrined memories. I call interior reserves “intangibles” because they are nonmaterial rations. Other people can only see these sustaining resources as they are expressed through me, curator of the archives of my soul. The files are carefully conserved and stored for my retrieval and facilitation. There are even finding-aids and inventories. Inner archives are as integral as directional compasses.

Hardly a flawless repository, human as it is. Reaching for inspiration, whether physical or metaphysical, still requires insight and determination. Though I may know what is necessary, my reflexes and grasp can fail, vulnerable as they are. I’ve surely experienced this, namely in the recent several years. Thankfully, my constant journaling provides something of a documental sounding board for me to review and re-read. When things appear to close in, and my journal entries repeat too many of the same troubles and roadblocks, my attention turns to setting attainable goals. The very short-term is as brass-tacks as “the next right thing.” Get through the week. Get through the morning. See if this-and-that can be done, while doing the-other-thing. Be a good trooper, so there’ll be time to journal later. As navigating becomes increasingly treacherous, managing the hazardous depths is best handled in brief distances. For a horizon-gazer like me, maintaining short perspectives is daunting, but often necessary to hold course. Those faraway yonders do exist, even when it’s best not to stare. Save the fine-focus for the moment, with wider angles for basic direction. Stored memory of gratitudes can supply sustenance that strengthens needed night vision. Now to remember to continue.

drawing the sources

“In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts
as they are for us in favor of the facts as they are.
The primary impulse of each is to maintain and aggrandise himself.
The secondary impulse is to go out of the self,
to correct its provincialism and heal its loneliness.”

~ C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

sources

With the passing of time, my attention is increasingly drawn to the roots of my experiences. Lived experience refers to present, as well as past; sensed as well as seen, remembered as well as immediate. Sources never cease to compel. A passing glance that causes me to look again and consider will invariably bring my attention to the source of the idea, the provenance of a scenario. It is a thirst to know meaning beneath the visible. And then there is the draw of sources themselves: the books that ignite the imagination, the individuals that inspire, the places that hold intrinsic and deeply personal references to the sacred. My lifelong fascinations with waterfalls and the vast ocean find parallels when listening to eloquent elders describe their stories, or when reading manuscripts from distant times. Sources speak from places and ages I could not have witnessed.

Enduring sources are timeless and cannot be exhausted. These represent tastes of the Wellspring of life, which can neither be measured nor extinguished. Peering through the glass aboard a surfaced Boston subway train, hurtling across the Longfellow Bridge, the contrast between dark tunnel and bright sky was impossible not to notice. This same sensation occurs to me, just about every time I reach the outdoor portion of the inbound subway trip. From darkened mirrors facing in, to sudden and clear outward views. The Charles River, distant buildings, and the broad sky overhead, extend my focus and remind me of the sources of all that is before me. Indeed, the very Source, the Divine, the ground of being, is solidly present such that my fleeting attention is caught away by small components. Henry David Thoreau astutely warned how easily our lives are frittered away in detail. Whether or not he succeeded in his living experiment at Walden Pond, his brilliant writing left us a document of his motivation to live deliberately, and to confront the essentials in life. It becomes vital to unburden and approach the sources of life and inspiration.

Walden Pond


experiences

My experience shows me how sources take many forms and manifestations. I’ve already mentioned such tangibles as physical sites, individuals, literary sources, and even the heart’s direct experience of God. In addition, there are repositories cultivated within, made of one’s collected source material. We may list our diplomas, their granting institutions, and a selection of jobs in our résumés, but these inventories do not describe our formation. There are sources which have made us the working, thinking, interacting persons that we are. Consider how and where you were raised, from infancy and right up until you could choose your own mentors. On the occasions in which some of my teachers and professors would tell me about those under whom they had studied (“under” as though beneath a tree!), I’d reflect that I somehow joined a kind of lineage- a genealogy of learning. Naming off where and what we studied in our formal schooling is merely at the surface. Where and what was the learning- not just then, but now?

Consider the people, cultures, and trends that comprise your influences. My oratory style is an amalgam of my father, my favorite graduate school history professors, and one of my Benedictine monk friends. My culinary and penmanship methods bear my mother’s stamp, as does my taste for irony. Many of my manners and organizing sensibilities are owed to my years of lived experience in monastic communities. A long list could follow, but instead and for this purpose, it will suffice to say the sources dearest to me have been the ones that have guided me to sources. The particular subway ride I described was en route to the Boston Athenaeum library, a place introduced to me by school friends. Learning, perceiving, and creativity continue long and far beyond the old lecture halls. Sources produce beginnings, and further sources provide sustenance.

extension

Drawing from wellsprings does not have hoarding as its goal. It is quite the opposite, for me. Collected knowledge and impressions add rungs to our ladders. Ascents progressively heighten and descents deepen, as thoughts of self occupy less space at the center. Learning, at its most redeemable, is best applied when offered as a compassionate extension. My notebooks record history while providing future references. These incidental uses have proven to be as gratifying as informative. Indeed the enjoyment of writing, in itself, remains primary. What motivates discovery are hopes for the extending of hard-earned knowledge and comprehension. Thirst for wisdom is matched by desire to diffract and share the Light within.

Above: Restoring a treasured source for an elderly friend.
Below: His hands with the restored book

In some critical ways, those who assiduously pursue the Divine for the purpose of lived application are the uncommon torchbearers. The light must be carried through undetermined crepuscule, to be potential light for others. Through waystations and on the road, learning must continue with care, so that it can be spun into reinforcing fibers. There remain great and unknown distances to cover. But I do not venture without provision. Not only are my teachers’ and parents’ lessons and stories accompanying me, but also the imprints of their mannerisms and voices. What is expressed is as important as how it’s said. A disciple is taught more than skills and methodologies; through personal mentoring, style is transmitted. Thus, facts are accompanied by techniques. Conversely, committed and witnessed errors of the past can inform discernment, and prevent repetition. We extend and manifest our received learning.

development and vocation

Pausing at this precipice of time, it is as necessary to pose the questions of cultivation as it is to ask the purposes of desire. Over the years, I’ve been making every effort within my economic and time limitations to choose how I add to my learning. Often, such decisions affect my travels, and the pursuit of wise words and artworks joins my pilgrimage. Now I recall William Armstrong’s admiring commentary about the self-taught Abraham Lincoln, who “gave back as rain what he received as mist.”

“He received his knowledge as mist, because he had so little time to learn. No one provided him with books and classes and study halls. He snatched his study periods between hours of hewing away the wilderness and fighting hunger.”*

By noting thoughts, quotations, and moments in a journal, maintaining a spirit of research, the average day can yield a manuscript collection. With a balanced sense of enquiry, a corresponding sense of expression can be developed. Feeling, thinking, and willing have been called the three primary functions of the human mind. Each are needed, along with an ability to visualize the “big picture.” Returning to Thoreau’s ideas, as I know to maintain a broad view amidst life’s transactions and demands, then I would succeed at carrying my own portable shore of Walden Pond with me. His use of deliberate is what this century might call conscientious. A clear sense of intention, of vocation, provides a guideline for life emphases and study.

Above: Taizé, France.
Below: Walden Pond, Massachusetts.

A vocation is often referred to as a calling, and this is misconstrued when viewed in a passive light. Vocation is not simply a subtle impression of God to a human. It is the reaching for a person by the very Spirit of Creation, and the initiation of an eternity of relational discourse. Going to the sources of trust and strength is a response, and the purpose is at once to draw out and to be infused by the holiness that transcends corruption. Having drawn from life-giving sources, the succeeding purpose is extension. Hence, calling is a great deal more than to merely believe, but to relate and to act. Our very physical design implies receptivity and reaching out, comprehension and active response. And collected knowledge and insights must find their means for extension to benefit others, and thus, the universe of knowledge itself. Be assured, consoled, and strengthened: even in this culture of mirages, learning and a proximity to the sources of trust and wisdom cannot diminish either in value or in urgency.

__________________
  * Study is Hard Work, by William H. Armstrong