Dear Friends,
As a child, I knew that once the locusts starting singing in the evenings that the new school year was not far away. I heard them a few weeks ago when I was sitting out on the front porch and those memories came rushing back. And, sure enough, school is going to start this week!
However, I have learned that in the spiritual life this image does not work as well. I think the image of a spiral works better. This image is found in a number of cultures around the world. For them life is less a progressive movement and more a cyclical one. Crops grow and die; seasons warm and chill; humans rejoice and suffer in turn. If we miss a chance in one season, we will get another chance next time around. Those cultures are not as worried about time as we are. They are more open to being in the present moment. Maturity is not measured by progressive time and experience, but by the degree to which these cyclical events affect a person’s inner posture toward life and God.
Spiraling upward toward the center means encountering life’s cyclical paths with increasing wisdom without being frustrated by not making the great leaps of progress we desire. Those cultures that see life as cyclical, interpret life’s up-and-down fortunes as natural revolutions. The mature person is not one who walks through suffering on a linear road of infinite progress, but who inclines toward the center as if on a spoke while the wheel rotates. The closer we move to the center, the closer our proximity not to a destination, but to God.
As a new school year begins, we may be looking forward to the linear progress a year can bring. However, that image can also bring about a sense of dread when we look at all that must be done. If we see the upcoming year as part of a cycle that re-enacts the seasons of life with no exact beginning and no clear end, then we can savor the fresh autumn days knowing that winter is not far behind, yet always moving higher and closer to the divine through the differing cycles.
If we visualize the upcoming school year as a spiral whose circular path takes us closer to the center, the wheel will turn as it has done before, but we are not static. We can make progress. The spiraling path moves us inward toward the center, and upward where we revolve ever closer to the heart of God.
It may seem we are repeating the same things again and again, but we are growing in wisdom and growing closer to God. If you have ever walked through a prayer labyrinth, the experience can be frustrating and slow. It requires concentration, because the emphasis is on the slow movement toward the center and it often feels as though you are doubling back upon ground you have already covered. The temptation is to jump over the walls and strain to cut to the center. The revolving journey can feel unnecessary and repetitive, but that is the sanctifying experience. Prayer labyrinths teach us that the journey is not toward a wide and empty horizon, but to the harmonizing center of the created order, to God.
You may feel that you have not made progress in your journey to God because you are still dealing with the same issues you were dealing with twenty years ago, but I think if you see the spiritual life as a spiral, you can see that while the issue may be the same, you are not in the same place. You really have grown in your closeness to God. Will the cycle repeat? Of course. You are who you are. But God will be ever nearer as well. You may not have left anything behind, but it is all brought nearer to the center, to God.
Peace,
Fr. Damian