Day 15
I woke up this morning with an acute awareness of being on a journey learning about prayer that I didn’t really realize I was on until now.
I guess it’s kind of like falling asleep in a car and waking up and discovering that you’re headed out somewhere. The seat was just a seat, and now its become an amenity in transportation.
Or maybe it’s like going out for a walk and finding new roads, trails and neighborhoods that will take a long time to explore and become familiar with.
Most journeys hold both the familiar and yet unknown. And the best journeys take a certain adventuresome nature, held fast by an ability to keep one’s bearings in new territories.
When I was in college at UC Berkeley, I used to take long walks. I’d finish all my work on a Friday afternoon, then reward myself by setting off to explore the neighborhoods. Going on foot with a lightly packed backpack, I’d give myself maybe an hour max in one direction, and then head back, trampling along Berkeley’s funky sidewalks in the musty late afternoon air.
I loved those walks. It was before I started lap swimming. I’d have complete quiet to myself and could do what I wanted. That’s how I found Peet’s Coffee on Walnut St. on the north side. This was before Peet’s went commercial. You could only buy Peet’s at Peet’s in Berkeley. And they not only had coffee but exotic teas, like Pumphrey’s Blend and an herbal mint composite that no longer exists.
I discovered Nabolom Bakery, stuck behind Sweet Dreams toy store on College Avenue on the south side. I think it was run by a bunch of former Berkeley hippies – fresh ingredients and lots of butter gave the women employees with heads tied up in scarves and faded natural fiber pants smooth, rounded hips. The spectacular danish pastries were a personal treat that I’d take back to my apartment to savor later that night with a cup of hot coffee.
I always timed it carefully. I knew I couldn’t leave later than, say, 4:30 during fall or winter because I needed to get back to my apartment before dark. Some things don’t change: every Cal student knew you should never walk alone at night. But in the late fall and winter afternoons, you could walk fast in the cool air and smell the foliage and sometimes burning fireplaces that you never get in Hawaii.
I used to wonder if seeing me, people thought me strange. I traveled alone and with pretend purpose, walking quickly with head straight ahead as if I knew exactly where I was headed. I didn’t want to be mistaken for a lost soul. I always had a destination: College Avenue on the south side or Solano on the north side. But along the way, I would see things and think things, and when I got to my turn-around neighborhood, there were boutiques and neighborhood groceries to peek into. And then I would head back.
This spiritual journey that I have woken up to has that same feeling. God has me out for some exercise beyond my ken. Again, it’s only Him and me with a destination – but one that I am not entirely sure of. I’ve not walked these roads before.
And though the territory is strange, I’m not scared – because I keep looking ahead. My steps are marked with determination even though I’m just a young undergraduate in the university, or should I say universe of spiritual understanding.
I’ve a mild sense of exhilaration, not unlike the adrenaline rush you get from exercising. Moving my spiritual muscles, working them a little harder, pushing them just that much more causes me to breathe deep and expand – not my lungs – but my being. I am feeling parts of myself come slowly alive, called into use. Maybe that’s what prayer is: a breathing out of our lives and a breathing in of God’s.
Like those Berkeley walks, this journey takes time out of my day. But instead of it being something I put aside at the end of the week as a reward, I’m finding myself in the middle of it every day – not suddenly and strangely lost, as if I had awoken from sleep or amnesia – but more like I’ve been on a journey all along but now I’m looking up and viewing the scenery differently, with more detail and a running commentary from God.
Journey as allegory is a convention in English literature that goes back hundreds of years. Danté and Milton both wrote about trips to paradise and hell. My favored book by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce likewise talks of a bus ride to heaven. We’re all on journeys that we sometimes fail to recognize. When we don’t put ourselves into the hands and guidance of God, maybe we end up like the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, aimless and lost.
Where am I headed on this current journey with God? Lately it’s been inward, marked by introspection and elevated observation of how my small actions fit into God’s grander scheme. I suspect, however, that the inward will also lead me outward as God develops in me new reinforced strength to journey into situations in which I am truly a stranger but somehow look familiar to people I meet.
Coincidentally, I learned a new word tonight: GORK— an acronym used by medical practitioners for “God Only Really Knows.” That’s my journey right now. No highlighted map for the route I’ll take. No summarized itinerary of sites I’ll visit along the way. And that’s fine, I can live with that. Because as long as God really knows, I will be okay.
I guess it’s kind of like falling asleep in a car and waking up and discovering that you’re headed out somewhere. The seat was just a seat, and now its become an amenity in transportation.
Or maybe it’s like going out for a walk and finding new roads, trails and neighborhoods that will take a long time to explore and become familiar with.
Most journeys hold both the familiar and yet unknown. And the best journeys take a certain adventuresome nature, held fast by an ability to keep one’s bearings in new territories.
When I was in college at UC Berkeley, I used to take long walks. I’d finish all my work on a Friday afternoon, then reward myself by setting off to explore the neighborhoods. Going on foot with a lightly packed backpack, I’d give myself maybe an hour max in one direction, and then head back, trampling along Berkeley’s funky sidewalks in the musty late afternoon air.
I loved those walks. It was before I started lap swimming. I’d have complete quiet to myself and could do what I wanted. That’s how I found Peet’s Coffee on Walnut St. on the north side. This was before Peet’s went commercial. You could only buy Peet’s at Peet’s in Berkeley. And they not only had coffee but exotic teas, like Pumphrey’s Blend and an herbal mint composite that no longer exists.
I discovered Nabolom Bakery, stuck behind Sweet Dreams toy store on College Avenue on the south side. I think it was run by a bunch of former Berkeley hippies – fresh ingredients and lots of butter gave the women employees with heads tied up in scarves and faded natural fiber pants smooth, rounded hips. The spectacular danish pastries were a personal treat that I’d take back to my apartment to savor later that night with a cup of hot coffee.
I always timed it carefully. I knew I couldn’t leave later than, say, 4:30 during fall or winter because I needed to get back to my apartment before dark. Some things don’t change: every Cal student knew you should never walk alone at night. But in the late fall and winter afternoons, you could walk fast in the cool air and smell the foliage and sometimes burning fireplaces that you never get in Hawaii.
I used to wonder if seeing me, people thought me strange. I traveled alone and with pretend purpose, walking quickly with head straight ahead as if I knew exactly where I was headed. I didn’t want to be mistaken for a lost soul. I always had a destination: College Avenue on the south side or Solano on the north side. But along the way, I would see things and think things, and when I got to my turn-around neighborhood, there were boutiques and neighborhood groceries to peek into. And then I would head back.
This spiritual journey that I have woken up to has that same feeling. God has me out for some exercise beyond my ken. Again, it’s only Him and me with a destination – but one that I am not entirely sure of. I’ve not walked these roads before.
And though the territory is strange, I’m not scared – because I keep looking ahead. My steps are marked with determination even though I’m just a young undergraduate in the university, or should I say universe of spiritual understanding.
I’ve a mild sense of exhilaration, not unlike the adrenaline rush you get from exercising. Moving my spiritual muscles, working them a little harder, pushing them just that much more causes me to breathe deep and expand – not my lungs – but my being. I am feeling parts of myself come slowly alive, called into use. Maybe that’s what prayer is: a breathing out of our lives and a breathing in of God’s.
Like those Berkeley walks, this journey takes time out of my day. But instead of it being something I put aside at the end of the week as a reward, I’m finding myself in the middle of it every day – not suddenly and strangely lost, as if I had awoken from sleep or amnesia – but more like I’ve been on a journey all along but now I’m looking up and viewing the scenery differently, with more detail and a running commentary from God.
Journey as allegory is a convention in English literature that goes back hundreds of years. Danté and Milton both wrote about trips to paradise and hell. My favored book by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce likewise talks of a bus ride to heaven. We’re all on journeys that we sometimes fail to recognize. When we don’t put ourselves into the hands and guidance of God, maybe we end up like the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, aimless and lost.
Where am I headed on this current journey with God? Lately it’s been inward, marked by introspection and elevated observation of how my small actions fit into God’s grander scheme. I suspect, however, that the inward will also lead me outward as God develops in me new reinforced strength to journey into situations in which I am truly a stranger but somehow look familiar to people I meet.
Coincidentally, I learned a new word tonight: GORK— an acronym used by medical practitioners for “God Only Really Knows.” That’s my journey right now. No highlighted map for the route I’ll take. No summarized itinerary of sites I’ll visit along the way. And that’s fine, I can live with that. Because as long as God really knows, I will be okay.
posted by Pam Chun at 1:42 AM
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