A Return: Where are you from?

Where are you from??

Over the past four weeks, my journeys have taken me from Springfield, Missouri, to South Bend, Indiana, around St. Louis, Missouri, and Panama City Beach, Florida, and back to St. Louis. One of my stops, the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, a place that I have only been in mind until this year. To be there was a significant experience of “place” and identity. Other weeks brought reflections on identity and journey as well family vacation and an extended time away. The past four weeks’ hiatus from blogging has given me a shift in thinking and spiritual life.?

The Learning Highlights.

In one way, the person writing today is not the same person who was writing this blog when I last wrote regularly, yet I am still the same. Today’s post is a little longer than usual and in a different focus than on the Gospel question of the day. In some ways, this post might be a product of mid-life, but it also may be a product of the whole of life. Three out of the four past weeks I have traveled, yet being a stranger in my home these past 16 months was the most significant and transforming. The second was to shift my thinking to being a pilgrim on my journey and not a tourist. The third was seeing that I have fallen into a disproportionate understanding and lived reality and relationship with work and leisure.

A Pilgrim’s Return to Place.

First, as a lay monastic for the past twenty-three years, I have always held myself to the?“conversatio morum,”?loosely translated as the ongoing conversion of life. Within the context of the?conversatio morum?, generally, it requires obedience to a particular way of life and stability to a specific place and a specific people. At the heart of obedience is listening. These past 16 months of the Covid-19 Pandemic were some of the most challenging. Yet, some of the most rewarding times I have had with entering deeply into this monastic way. In some ways, I was more able to practice this monastic way as a layperson in the world these past few months than I have ever been able to previously, stability of place, not just my home, but the totality of the “place” where I live. The geography of the small subdivision with the nearby long tree-covered path leads through neighborhoods and a park and eventually leads me back home. To notice the Cardinals (the actual birds and not the baseball team) along the edge of the path and the tree line as I make my morning walk. A morning walk in the neighborhood was brought on by remaining in place and not running off to a gym or on some other trip. This experience of walking a path that I knew was the exact path that leads me to be a stranger to this place.

To have the mind and eyes of observation and attention to everything anew. To witness the buds on the tree that sits in my front window bud forth with new leaves. To watch it day by daily slowly open up and give in to the new life coming budding for in the springtime sun, to provide a brief morning shade in the early morning hours. In many ways, our souls cannot be separated from the place where we dwell. How do we maintain the relationship not just with the people but also with the “place?”

The time of the pandemic has required me to practice making a place—a place for my soul and my life to dwell. I have lived in this house and community for years, yet this past 16 months shifted my attention and intention to make this a place. A place for my soul to both dwell and to continue to be a stranger. It is both the place where I arrive and depart for the journey. Yet is the place where I, too, become lost and found again and again. It is said that “place” offers us -geography, autobiography, and metaphor—all three must be held together; separately, they are not exciting. Together they hold a key; I will write on this at a later time. The place invites me to reveal about myself, who I am, who I am becoming, my relationship with others, and with God. It also shows that when all is said and done, God indeed calls us the place where we are already engaged and live. Yes, God can call us to another place, but we must start with the “place” we currently inhabit.

A Move From Tourist to Pilgrim.

The second observation and shift in the last four weeks is the internal move and choice to be intentional about being a pilgrim and not a tourist. A tourist consumes a place. They focus on capturing pictures to “use” a place for the experience. A pilgrim sees the “place” as the experience and the deepening of how it forms the pilgrim. What does the place reveal about themselves, their relationship with others, and ultimately with God. To be a pilgrim is to know yourself as a stranger to the place and to let the place inform our experience. Pilgrimage roots us in our sense of belonging. To be a pilgrim to a place is a call to help us see more.

What is more important is that how I could be in exile or a stranger in my own home was key to being a pilgrim when I was away. The pilgrimage begins from a place and journeys to another place. The path and the people along the way are essential to how one returns to the beginning. Again, the place provides for us geography, autobiography, and metaphor. What else in my life are the implications of moving from being a tourist to a pilgrim?

A Change in Perspective.

My third observation of this time came when I officially gave up my formal office at my job permanently to become a remote hybrid co-worker. This switch was a significant change in my perspective about the place of work and my own identity. For so long, I have placed my identity in my doing and not necessarily in my being. I identified with a place, an office, a job that only partially mediated verses of a place and not a totality. I loved my “going to the office and having an office” for it signified a critical status and something that could be desirable, and it is; however, it only partially mediates “who” I am and not the totality. Yet, I have placed a disproportionate share of meaning and priority on the job and not necessarily on the work. Work is what God calls us to do. It is usually larger than our jobs and maybe part of our job, but it is not the “place” where God calls us. You know, the fulfillment and offering of your gift to the world—an offering.??

To give up my office was needed to discover my imbalance with the job and move toward greater fulfillment of my calling for the work. As a lay monastic in the world, our life is a call to prayer and work; both are ultimately about Divine Worship and not about ourselves. They are about greater union with God. Of knowing ourselves as created for love and created to love. This little moment of “death” in giving up my office forced me to address other questions of finality. The monastic principle of?“momento mori”?or the reminder to keep death before you daily, came into the spotlight significantly as I addressed my hopes, joys, fears, and sorrows with giving up having an office. This focus helps make different decisions about moments in life and life and our fundamental orientation. So much so that this question informs how we answer the question in the little moments. It calls into focus what ultimately leads me in my prayer and work to Divine Worship. It informs my decisions regarding not just my “doing” but most importantly, my “being”—even though understanding the “place” of your being ultimately changes your relationship with your “doing” in this world.

So this time can be said to be a time of place, pilgrimage, and perspective. I hope to take a bit more time later to dive deeper into the place I am being called as my “one” thing. I would love to hear how you resonate with "place" and how it can provide you with a sense of geography, autobiography, and metaphor-what discoveries will you have when you enter more deeply into your Place, Pilgrimage, and Perspective.