How Will I Know The Way?

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in Discernment, pilgrimage

Tags

angels, Holy Spirit, pilgrimage, signs, social media

It’s always important to know where you are going…if possible! But Thomas, the friend of Jesus, poses my question: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (Jn.14:5). I am one who is on the journey, but often I am confused or just in the dark about a way forward.

Jesus refers his closest friends back to their journey with him already: “I am the way,” he says. It became a cliche several years back to ask one’s self “What would Jesus do?” But, in many ways we know how to go forward because we have already learned what is important. Jesus taught love, forgiveness, inclusiveness, kindness and compassion. None of those steps or actions can be the wrong steps, no matter where we find ourselves.

And he also promised that his close friends would experience the Spirit living within them, reminding them of the ways of love. In celebrating my retirement, my beloved friend Sandy preached a whiz-bang sermon, in which she likened the Holy Spirit to a spiritual GPS in our travels, giving us course correction, reminding us to back up and turn around, telling when we have taken a wrong route. I have experienced that GPS within me, making itself known in sacred reading, in quiet prayer, in conversation with others. It is a source of creative energy, a fountain which produces ideas that seem to come from nowhere, about how to love, when to be quiet, and ways to think outside the box about knotty problems.

That Spirit also sharpens my senses to signs along the way that I might not be aware of otherwise. While I traveled last fall in northern New Mexico, I came out of my room one morning to see the sign on the grass in front of my room. It invited me to GROW! There were no further instructions at that site, but I was challenged to muse on ways I can still grow. I see that I can still learn to strengthen my body so that I can walk and hike to places I never imagined. I have set myself reading that is beyond my comfort zone, so that my intellect is still gathering and processing points of view that I have never considered. Social media has allowed me to converse with and pray with and for people whom I have not met, but whose view from their location opens me to a wider caring and commitment to the healing of the world that God loves. Signs abound in my life with the Spirit lens with which to view them, and they lead me onward. How could I have known that installing a drought resistant garden in the front yard would bring me a more joyful appreciation of the varieties of creation and prompt me to a deeper commitment to the care of that creation and its resources?

I will know they ways by the journey itself, by the Spirit guide who accompanies me, and points me to signs. The artist Brian Andreas helps me know how to look for them:

Who Is Going With Me?

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in pilgrimage

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

community, Nelle Morton, pilgrimage, social media

Pilgrimage has been my metaphor since I was a young woman. Providentially, I learned that image of traveling in faith as one of walking with the Holy One, not as a feat that has to be accomplished or a a goal that had to be achieved. As the late theologian Nelle Morton has said, “The journey is home!” So on this site, I continue a journey begun on another website, but this time I am on my own.

Traveling alone feels risky. However, I am very aware of the Spirit guides that are with me still. In making the transition I have had conversation partners whose questions, probing, and feedback about my blogging have shaped my discernment; they have asked me the hard questions of “why?” and “what are you called to do?” and “where do you experience freedom?” Some are wise ones with much personal experience in listening, then following the Voice of the Beloved as they navigate their way on the journey. Others are pragmatic, expert in technology and practical tips of the social media world. I also have been guided by voices in writing whom I have never met, as I have read poetry, reflections and teaching from writers in this season of Epiphany, those who have led me to pondering what it means to “go home by another way” or those who have invited me to step over the threshold into the next leg of the travel.

I also have as companions on this trek those whose places I frequent with regularity–the congregation with whom I worship, the group of Ammas with whom I meet, and, much to my surprise, I have a virtual community of prayer and reflection on social media and on e-mail. With each group I share prayers, the Word and words that teach me, challenge me and give me hope. No one in this company is taking the exact route that I am taking; some of them are no even aware of my particular route. But when I let myself rest awhile with each of them, I experience bread for the journey, and often, strength for the day.

Another set of companions hovers over this sojourn–the “cloud of witnesses” that has been the agent of Grace that has brought me safe thus far: family members who imprinted me with Christian thought and practice; teachers and models who explained or embodied a “more excellent” way; previous generations of faithful ones whose legacy remains alive and compelling in my heart and life in word, song, and image.

I remain very clear that wherever I go, the Spirit goes with me and lives in me; She is my Teacher, with a voice behind me saying, as Isaiah observed, “This is the way, to the right, or to the left.”

So, as frightening as it seems to set out “alone,” I take this step, knowing that I am in good company, along with all those who read and muse on this blog. Let the adventure continue!