Toward The Edge

November 19th, 2010 in Franciscan Mentors Program by Kathleen Flanagan3 Comments

Our first class got me thinking. My spiritual life is a little like the movie Groundhog Day, the same scenes play over and over and over again.

Scene 1: I wake up with intention to pray always but spend most of the day sleeping on the job. Scene 2: I wear out my bible reading about the rich young man (Mark 10:17-22) but give up little and walk away sad.

Like Bill Murray in the movie, I want to break the cycle! I am ready to pray more, to give up some (see how I hedge) security, risk poverty. I am ready to take another step closer to the gospel life I feel called to lead.

More prayer. Less security. You wouldn’t think of those as controversial topics but more time spent in prayer and a lower, less certain income can provoke as much controversy in one family as being a cross-dresser or joining the circus would in another.

There is something about moving out from the ‘Sunday Mass and a little bible study’ norm and attempting a closer relationship with God that’s suspect in our culture. It’s as if you are a spilt drink heading for the edge of the table – a lost hiker about to step off a cliff.

To the rescue! Humans seem to have a natural instinct to push people back from the edge, to get them onto safer ground.

Everything in moderation. I don’t think poverty means “material” poverty. You have obligations, responsibilities. If everyone was poor who would take care of the poor? Praying too much is isolating, you should be out in the world using your talents, helping people. That kind of contemplative life was for when women didn’t have other options.

Why would you go to Africa, my then mother-in-law asked, when there are so many poor people to help and good places to see right here in the United States? I don’t think it’s safe. Besides, you just had your carpets cleaned!

And if we don’t come to the rescue of those moving toward the edge, we’re likely to bid their crazy bunge-jumping souls farewell. Well, that’s not for me but good luck. I’ll pray for you.

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t openly explore a stirring, pull or desire toward the edge without getting assaulted with opinions, judgment, and the well placed loaded question, I asked a group of friends? “Yes,” they practically roared, “when…

“I wanted to adopt a baby at 50.”

“I didn’t want any more treatments.”

“Ben quit school and asked us to support his music career.”

“I felt I couldn’t take care of John anymore – that I had to let him go.”

“I wanted to turn our den into a prayer room.”

“I wanted to talk about doing something with our money besides leaving it to our kids.”

“Silence became important to me and I craved more of it.”

“I started exploring the concept of being a 100% waste free household,”

“I was ready to accept early retirement so I could do volunteer work at the shelter.”

And yet despite, the resistance of culture, family or friends, each one of us has taken steps in our lives, probably many steps, toward the edge. St. Francis, truly a fool for God, didn’t move toward the edge, he found a cliff and dove off it! I am much less ambitious. (After all, I am comparing myself to Bill Murray!) My next steps are going to be something like:

Make one day a week a ‘retreat day’
Commit half of my work time to writing and teaching and let the financial chips fall where they may

How about you? What steps have you taken that have moved you toward the edge? Have they been worth it? Do you feel a next step coming on?

Author: Kathleen Flanagan

Kathleen Flanagan is a retired international business executive who maintains a limited business consulting and personal coaching practice. She is also a writer, teaches contemplative prayer and strives to lead a contemplative life. She is currently attending the Franciscan Mentors Program at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, AZ and reflecting on that experience in this blog. To contact her, email kathleenflanagan@cox.net

3 Comments

This is the first time anyone who has participated in a Franciscan program has had the opportunity to enter into a conversation with others who attended too. Now I will have others to bounce ideas off of–I have not started to read my articles yet–more later.

Pat Julian

11/22/2010

Maybe it is the wisdom of my years or life’s good and not so good experiences that are drawing me to take a few steps closer to the edge. I feel the pull to leave behind the safety of the conventional life. Could it be a yearning to return to God?

Come to the edge, he said.
They said: “We are afraid”.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them… and they flew.

- Guillaume Apollinaire

It is truly exciting to be on this journey!

Margie

11/22/2010

Kathleen,

I didn’t realize you could read minds. Your description of your prayer life sounds so much like mine. At RCIA we were asked recently to describe our prayer life, the word that came to my mind immediately was “neglected”. I made a vow then to do something every day no matter how small. So far, I have been pretty good on that, but some days have been very small. Traveling really disrupts my life and spiritual practice in many ways.

I am comforted by the thought that the mere desire to pray is a prayer in God’s eyes. Today a friend gave me a wonderful incarnation metaphor of our response to a tiny baby – which is to reach down, pick it up and hold it to our chests – essentially to give it complete love and acceptance. The image is that this is the relationship God wants to have with us – that this symbolizes incarnation.

When I think of God like that, I know God is fine with everything I do, even on the days when I forget to pray at all, when I put spiritual practice aside to attend to my worldly concerns, and even (or maybe especially) when I miss the mark on being kind to and tolerant of others. It isn’t that God approves of my conduct, it is that God loves me so much it doesn’t matter. God never judges me in the first place, except to judge me loved and welcome. Even if I would do something I might personally consider unforgivable, God will still love me – before, during, after and into eternity.

I am the one judging and finding my prayer life (or whatever) lacking. And I am the one doling out the punishment since my own actions or inactions take me away from the awareness of God’s presence and the experience of it. I don’t know if this is making sense to anyone else, but this post it is part of my prayer life today.

Sending peace and love to everyone who reads this AND to every other sentient being in the universe.