In attempting to weather the tests and win our spurs, it is essential to know where we’ll go to gain and regain strength----to what people, places, teachings, practices, beliefs and sanctuaries. Who, that is, or what, are our allies?
In the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, after Theseus has slain the beast in the center of the labyrinth, he guides himself back to the surface by a length of thread given him by Ariadne, the king’s daughter, retracing his steps in the dark maze of tunnels.
What is that thread for you? What can guide you through the labyrinth, back to safety, back from your encounters with the dark? Perhaps it is the lamp of someone’s love, the support and feedback of people who genuinely believe you can do it, your connection to something bigger than yourself (family, community, nature, music, God), your own courage and humor, even your own desperation. Whatever the forms, these parts of you, of your life, can help you remember who you are. These are the parts of you that haven’t gone to sleep.
If our allies helps us stay the course, though, our “enemies”----that which thwarts us----provide us with the true tests of our spirit. They offer us the best opportunities to learn strength, resolve, patience and compassion----skills that are easy in the abstract and damnably hard in the doing. Sometimes, however, what first appears to be an enemy turns out not to be, and because we never know exactly when that will be the case, it is the better part of valor to exercise a heroic quality of discretion in following our calls. Be willing to approach obstacles as if they might be allies, and make your leaps of faith accordingly.
When Jonah went overboard after finally taking full responsibility for the calling that was his, he leapt not into the swallowing sea, but into an unexpected benediction----the belly of the whale. It was the whale that served as Ariadne’s thread for Jonah, leading him to safety, delivering him to his own fate for resolution.
The whale represents an appropriate plot twist and an inspired bit of symbolism. The only other time we are inside another’s belly is before birth, so the image reflects the anticipated birth that follows sacrifice. In that belly, drunk on evolution, we are not so much acting as being acted upon by Something Bigger than ourselves. It is preparation to be spilled forth into life, into the world, ready, at last, to carry out our missions.
The psychologist Ira Progoff once said that each of our lives is like a well, and what we’re meant to do is go down deeply enough into our own wells that we finally reach the stream that’s the source of all the wells. There, says theologian Frederick Buechner, in the place where “our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” we hear a further call. This call leads us out into the world to test our bright swords in real combat----to teach love, save lives, change minds, educate, minister.
If the question arises in our minds, which it must, whether our deep gladness can satisfy the world’s deep hunger, here, again, is a test of our faith. The difference that any of us will ultimately make in the world is equivalent to throwing a stone into the sea. Science tells us that because the stone is lying on the bottom, the level of the water must have risen. But there is no way to measure it. We must take it entirely on faith.
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