Welcome!

If you are here to explore working with a Spiritual Director, you may well be in the right place. Explore the site -- go to the GETTING STARTED (FAQ) page where many of your questions may already be answered; read the blog and listen to how you feel; follow some of the links to learn more; find out a little something about my background. If you'd like to contact me -- either to set up an appointment or ask a questions, there's a contact form on the right side of each page that you can use to MAKE A CONNECTION.

Most simply, though, the spirit of my practice can be summed up in these words (adapted from Robert Mabry Doss): For those who come here seeking God ... may God go with you. For those who come embracing life ... may life return your affection. And for those who come to seek a path ... may a way be found, and the courage to take it step by step.

Monday, June 10, 2019

Of Cages & Keys

Imagine a drawing done in pastel chalk, very impressionistic, showing a person sitting on a bench inside a jail cell.  The cell door is open, and there are shackles lying on the floor that are also open.  The person is free to leave, yet is still there -- as effectively imprisoned as if the door was barred and the chains were on. I drew that picture several years ago.  It was during one of the 9-day residencies that were part of the Shalem Institute's 2-year Spiritual Guidance program.  We'd been given a sheet that had several passages of scripture on it, and were asked to read through them all, slowly, and then to read through them again until one seemed to be calling out to us.  Then we were to read that passage over and over, slowly, and see where it took us. I found myself drawn to Isaiah 453: 1-3:
But now thus says the Lord,    he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:  Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;    I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
As I read these words I found myself being drawn closer and closer to one sentence:  "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you."  Eventually it was just the last four words that became a mantra for me, "I have redeemed you."

The image that came to my mind along with those words is the one I described above.  A person -- me, actually -- sitting in a cell, believing myself to be imprisoned, completely oblivious that I have already been "redeemed," that I've already been set free.  Like the narrator of the U2 song, "Love Rescue Me" the truth of my situation is that, "No man is my enemy; my own hands imprison me."  I just didn't realize it.

I don't think I'm alone in this, either.  It's actually extremely common for us humans to be held back by, essentially, ourselves -- our self-judgement, our internalized condemnations, our expectations of not being enough.  Even when we are told repeatedly that we're free to go out and live our lives fully and richly, authentically being our true selves, we so often stay in our cells because we believe that that's where we belong.  Or, at least, because that's where we think we're stuck and we don't see any way out.  Yet the spiritual teachings of all of the great religious traditions I know anything about is that the way *out* of our experience of imprisonment is to recognize that we've always been free.

In the movie The Greatest Showman there is a song called "The Other Side."  Hugh Jackson's "P.T. Barnum" is trying to convince Zac Ephron's character "Phillip Carlyle" to join him, subsidizing Barnum's show.  The metaphor of cages & keys runs throughout the song. Barnum tells Carlyle that the later can break free of the life of drudgery in which he's trapped.  Barnum sees Carlyle as imprisoned by his conventional lifestyle, and offers him a key to freedom.
"[Y]ou can do like you do, or you can do like me, stay in the cage, or you'll finally take the key.  Oh damn!  Suddenly you're free to fly ..."
For his part, though, Carlyle doesn't see himself (or, at least, doesn't want to see himself) as trapped, arguing that he "quite enjoys" the life Barnum sees as a cage.  He doesn't want what Barnum's selling because he doesn't think he needs it.
"[Y]ou go and do like you do, I'm good to do like me.  Ain't in a cage so I don't need to take the key.  Oh damn!  Can't you see I'm doing fine ..."
Whether or not you've seen the movie you can probably guess that the two do end up striking a deal because they come to realize that each has something to offer to the other, each is something that the other needs.  In doing so, they find a third way to use the cage & key metaphor. "So if you do like you do, and if you do like me, forget the cage 'cause we know how to make the key." Good news, isn't it?  That cell you feel you're imprisoned in?  The door's already opened, the shackles are lying open on the floor, the ransom been payed, and the deep reality is that you're not really imprisoned at all.  If we listen to the wisdom of that "voice of quiet stillness" within, we'll realize that they cage is no danger to us, because our spirit knows how to make the key.

 Pax tecum,

 RevWik



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