I Am No Monk!

Someone once asked me why I went back to graduate school after earning my Master's in Counseling. My off the cuff answer was that in our house you either keep up or shut up, and I'm not real good at shutting up. Although I was joking (mostly), it is true that mine is a household whose members love to learn and discuss.

In addition, I often find myself reading things that others in my family are reading so that I can engage meaningfully with them in conversation. I have read a lot of theoretical physics in a desperate attempt to keep up with my 13 year-old. Unlike with our running, I eventually had to cry, "Uncle!"

My husband Mark has been working on his doctoral dissertation in spiritual formation for a while now. So, of course, I'm reading a lot in that area (at least this is a topic I can wrap my mind around). But the more I read, the more dissatisfied I find myself.

You see, I am not a mystic. I have no monkish leanings.

I am all for the silent, isolated, cloistered experiences that we all need at times in order to revel in the presence of God. What I am dissatisfied with is that, according to everything I am reading, a monastic lifestyle is THE way to spiritual formation. I simply cannot imagine spending significant time cut off from the world around me as I try to become so disconnected from my senses that I forget everything but the existence of God.

I know, love, and respect a significant number of people who are more mystically gifted, so to speak. I admire their ability to sit in silence for a long time and simply be.

Consequently, for a long time I thought the problem was me. I was too socially focused and needed to break myself of this. My desire for external stimulation in the learning process was a weakness I should overcome. Etc.

There are times when it is necessary for me to move towards God in ways not a part of my natural mode of relating to the world around me. But I am beginning to believe that maybe there is more than one path to the kind of closeness to God that I see contemplation bringing for many of my friends. Unfortunately, if there is more than one path I cannot find anyone writing about it.

As I said, when we think something in this house, we discuss it. And so Mark and I have. He, too, senses a void in the literature. No one we have read yet makes much space for the extraverted and spontaneous on the path to spiritual formation.

In an attempt to better understand what I was sensing, I began looking at the relationship between Jesus and His disciples through this lens. Jesus did get frustrated with Peter, James, and John when they could not sit quietly while He prayed without falling asleep. But previously He had taken the same three to witness His transfiguration, a multi-sensory experience to be sure that required them to actually enhance their sensual awareness of the world around them. Is this a clue? Is it possible that Jesus knew you could draw close to God in myriad ways, some of which will be easier for some personalities than others?

Perhaps my dissatisfaction with the literature of spiritual formation is not such much a result of my own failings (of which there are plenty), and more about the need to find a way to appreciate the parts of me that make more than 10 minutes of meditation difficult. Maybe multiple paths to oneness and union with God exist which allow each of us to access the spiritual disciplines in ways that honor our unique personalities.

So I lay myself open to God hoping He will show me how to revel more and more in Him without having to deny the way He created me to be.

And though I may have had to give up on theoretical physics, I will continue to study and learn in an effort to keep up with my family...because I'm pretty sure there won't be much shutting up!