Way... not “the” Way

“We listen for guidance everywhere except from within.

“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent... I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about – quite apart from what I would like it to be about – or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live – but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”

• Parker Palmer Let Your Life Speak

Our society has an enduring love affair with the idea of a golden path that we are predestined to follow... the way. Parker Palmer, one of the most influential people in my life (also a brilliant author and a Quaker), teaches us that it is wrong to call it “the way.” Way is plentiful and without limit. No matter where you're at in life, no matter how much you think you're screwed up and lost, Way can manifest itself and guide you to a happier healthier life. Way is quiet and shy as kittens, you have to seek it; if you're not looking for it, you will never know it's there. Like a vast hall of doors, we can choose to enter only one at a time; some of these options are better than others. There is usually no single choice that is the best, but God is always opening some doors and holding others closed. Have faith, and when the time is right, Way will open.

Sometimes we are so intent on going through a particular door, a particular way, that we are pounding on it with both fists or using an ax to get through! Sometimes we want it bad enough to die trying to go down a road we were never intended to travel. Yet when you sit back, take a deep breath, and wait for Way to manifest itself, you will often realize that a different door has been sitting open all along. I'm going to spoil the ending and tell you that this door probably doesn't lead to the place you wanted. Rather, it leads to a place so much better, that one can't help but shrink to his knees and tremble before the power and wisdom of the universe.

My life has been a textbook (or comic book) example of pounding on closed doors. I wanted to go down a path so earnestly that I bloodied my fists with pounding. I was so intent on marrying a wonderful girl in the temple, that I went so far as to get engaged (Diamond ring (fake) for sale $1500, call me). That ended in a complete mental breakdown... mental Hiroshima, if you will. I was a broken man. All I could do over the next couple of months was to mourn the loss of my precious pre-chosen path and wallow in confusion over where to go from there.

As with Palmer's experience, I learned that Way is rarely manifest in the easy, primary-song method. We desperately want to pray or meditate about what we should do in any given problem; after a certain amount of time, we expect God, the Universe, or Way to make the right path known to us (hopefully within 15 minutes because America's Next Top Model will be coming on). Shame on those of you who demand haste from the mysteries of the universe. Respect and honor the Way.  

Way often does open in front of us, but often we receive guidance when Way closes. When your yellow brick road crumbles, your small business fails, or your 5-year plan collapses, the true way becomes at least a little clearer.

“There is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does – maybe more.

“There is as much guidance in way that closes behind us as there is in way that opens ahead of us. The opening may reveal our potentials while the closing may reveal our limits – two sides of the same coin, the coin called identity...

“We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer – and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives”

I shutter to think of all the heartbreaking choices that people are going through out there. Some of you are struggling with the expectations that your loved ones have for you to go on a mission or otherwise conform. For some of you, this battle is reaching a climax at a time in your life when you have the obligations of children and a spouse. I pray for you. Your burden is great. DO NOT accept counsel from anybody on either side of this great debate who has the audacity to suggest that there is a one-step easy solution to your situation. Neither the “Come out already!” crowd nor the “All you gotta do is be alone the rest of your life, what's the big deal?” group know you as well as you do or as well as your creator does. Your life has a unique path and only your spirit has the right to communion with the great powers of this universe to reveal the right path for you. Once Way has come into your life, it will take courage... tremendous courage and fortitude to walk that path.

For all of you who were advised by your church leaders to marry as a solution to your homosexuality, you hold a special place in my heart. There must be tens of thousands of you who followed this counsel over the years. Many of you have children. I have known loneliness, but I would venture to guess that a mixed orientation marriage would be the loneliest place on this earth. If, and only if, you feel like your path leads you to living your life as a gay man, please consider this: “One dwells with God by being faithful to one's nature. One crosses God by trying to be something one is not. Reality – including one's own – is divine, to be not defied but honored.” You must live your life; your children and loved ones have the choice to be a part of your new life or not. You didn't have a choice to be who you are. A crushing portion of the accountability for your situation lies with those who unwisely and without authority counseled you to enter a sacred covenant to fix something they did not understand and did not care to understand. Their haste has resulted in incalculable torment and wretchedness.

“We have places of fear inside of us, but we have other places as well – places with names like trust and hope and faith. We can choose to lead from one of those places, to stand on ground that is not riddled with the fault lines of fear, to move toward others from a place of promise instead of anxiety. As we stand in one of those places, fear may remain close at hand and our spirits may still tremble. But now we stand on ground that will support us, ground from which we can lead others toward a more trustworthy, more hopeful, more faithful way of being in the world”

Brothers, maybe it's time we listened for guidence from within.  "God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.”

Gratitute:

Parker J Palmer, Let Your Life Speak (San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass, 2000)