You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘honesty’ tag.
Seems that my long life is like a treasure hunt.
Once I stepped back from significant teachers and took stock of what I found, I began discerning clues about the Sacred in places I ordinarily would not have frequented, specifically my unconscious; its darkness, impenetrable. My loneliness deepened, my discomfort mounted, and questions spliced my resolve. Even more disconcerting were my dreams, like cattle prods urging me forward. With trepidation, one foot scaled that ravine; another trudged through brambles that bloodied my calves. Many dead-ends undermined my resolve to forge ahead, and yet there was no other option. There was always the next clue to discover.
Years passed. This was no child’s game. Annual retreats afforded me respite to consolidate my gains and give thanks to God. But then the struggle began afresh—Still another clue to discover. So what is this treasure that has attracted my being, from earliest memory? Once glimpsed, its allure only compelled more engagement.
Again, I look to the Gospels. Jesus likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a hidden treasure buried in a field (Mt. 13). Someone finds it, reburies it, then thrilled by his discovery, sells all he has and buys this field. He must have it. His life depends upon it.
Like the seeker, I cherish this treasure, tucked away in my depths. Lest I become puffed up by this discovery, the apostle Paul likens my humanness to an earthenware vessel (II Cor. 4:7), ordinary, and in time, cracks apart when no longer needed.
So the treasure hunt continues in my present circumstances—My self-emptying also continues.
Meaningful experience strengthens judgment, refines perspective, and deepens one’s usefulness to others. Without mature ideation and decisive action, misunderstanding occurs, resentments flourish, and readers drop off.
Perhaps I unwittingly roused the latter with my using the term, end-time, in blogs that I began posting with my November 2019 admission to hospice; it has continued to appear.
Since then, I’ve learned of my misuse of this term more aptly referring to the biblical end-time found in the books of Daniel, Matthew, I and II Timothy, II Peter, II Thessalonians, and Jude; both terms differ in meaning. I had used end-time to describe my limited lifespan with terminal illness, Interstitial Lung Disease with Rheumatoid Arthritis—Nothing like self-correction.
In place of end-time, I’ll blog the phrase, final phase of life, the length of which no one knows. My hospice experience still strengthens me for what is coming, and I’m privileged to keep this record as it unfolds and learn from it. Each day is gift, in the deepest sense.
Steal away, steal away
Steal away to Jesus!
Steal away, steal away home;
I ain’t got long to stay here.
Yesterday’s choir honored Junteenth by singing the African American spiritual, Steal Away, composed around 1862. Its yearning to make a radical change, in secrecy, smarts the senses, provokes shortness of breath, enhances identification. Repetitious lyrics and the melodic line afford rapid learning and lodge in the heart-memory. Such is my take on this spiritual, in my present circumstances.
Although Steal Away was composed by Wallace Willis, a field slave of a Choctaw freedman in the old Indian territory, Doaksville, Oklahoma, its widespread use among enslaved Africans is questioned by Frederick Douglass, freed slave and African American social reformer, and other current critics.
The spiritual’s use, as code for fugitives on the Underground Railroad, is also questioned as little evidence substantiates this claim. Douglass maintained only small groups planning escape to the North found courage in singing Steal Away. Such singing the white populace regarded as the “many silly things they do.”—Viewing them as less than human.
I ain’t got long to stay here.
So, the declaration concludes, impacted by strong metaphors: home: realm of freedom and eternal life; thunder and lightning: sources of dangerous energy; the trumpet: instrument of authority used in Old Testament for worship services, teaching, correction, and announcing war; call: a summons that demands immediate compliance, thunder, lightning, and green trees bending that suggest nature’s influence. At work here is the redemptive power of the Lord among sinners, falling short of the mark.
I include myself among them as I wait…
Heart Whisperings 