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David Hayward 1 year, 2 months ago.
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A friend of a friend posted this on his blog. It was about getting mildly lost on a bushwalk recently and how he reacted to sort it out.
http://www.seaoftroubles.net/blog/2013/08/26/on-being-lost/
During this time, something interesting and strange was going on in my head. My instincts were screaming the textbook answer: go back to the known trail and re-evaluate. Yet, I pressed on. I think I was afraid that I was permanently lost, and that moving felt like I was doing something about it. I found myself covering up that fear by insisting that I just didn’t want to be late for the people picking me up at the end, and I had no mobile phone reception to warn them, so I couldn’t afford to back-track and lose time. Layered on top of that was overconfidence, grounded in my equipment and my training. I had, after all, a good map, a compass, a GPS receiver, and equipment that would allow me to survive (albeit uncomfortably) most of a week in the wild without great difficulty. I was even carrying water purification tablets.
It reminded me of spiritual journeys, especially re-evaluations of long-held faith and beliefs. We need to remember to re-cultivate that “beginner’s mind”.
Wade.
AnonymousGood point Wade. I like the trail analogy.
When I first started this spiritual journey, I wanted to go down every trail I saw other people were going down. Same thing with wanting to read every book/blog I heard about. I quickly became overwhelmed. I finally learned to sit back and see which trail/book/blog was calling to me then proceed down that trail until I came to another cross roads. Then I needed to sit, evaluate, and listen again to see which one was calling me. Most times I heard correctly, but even if I chose the wrong one and had to circle back around to find the right one for me, I still ran across a few nuggets I would have missed had I not gotten off my path. So it’s all good, really.
I’ve been lost before. Terrifying. Great analogy!
Not sure that this is the right place to share a rant I’ve just posted in a couple of places on Facebook:
I got up this morning at 5.15am feeling so very much alone. I think it was in 1967 that I was leading a men’s discussion group and asked the question, “What is the purpose of life?” The immediate reaction of the Vicar was, “Peter, you can’t ask that, that is the 64,000 dollar question (a lot of moneyin those days). Let’s go on to your next question”. With hindsight that was the beginning of my disillusionment with traditional Christianity, but I have no recollection of ever doubting the existence of God.I went on asking the awkward questions unaware that more and more people were also asking similar questions. It was about 35 years later before I really became aware of what was then often being referred to as the ‘out of church Christians’. It was in 2003 that I stumbled on ‘So You Don’t Want to go to Church anymore’ on the web when the authors (Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman) had only written the first three chapters. This eventually led to being aware of the story of ‘The Shack’ before it was first published privately in 2007.To cut a very long story short, there was a tremendous fellowship on ‘The God Journey’ for perhaps a couple of years. I’m still in touch with a few of those people but basically we have all gone our separate ways. By 2010 I had realised that I had a faith that I no longer needed to defend. I had come to appreciate that the more I learned the more I realised how little I really knew – and that I didn’t need to have all the answers.It would have been from about 2004 that I continued to attend church every Saturday because my wife still wanted to, but by 2009 I had to tell her that I could no longer attend services with her (although I still take her and meet her afterwards). I find it amazing how my understanding has changed in that time (because of the freedom that I now have).So why the feeling of being so very much alone?Many years ago a very close friend had said, “Peter, you have the knack of asking some of the awkward questions to which there are no easy answers”.Over the last few months I have felt drawn to bringing some of those questions together that I had been asking around 2006 when it became obvious to me that some of these questions could be helpful for others who were now on a similar wilderness journey. I wasn’t interested in providing answers – simply trying to encourage others to consider questions that might not have even occurred to them yet.Over the last few months I have spent a lot of time redeveloping my blog. It has taken quite a lot out of me and I’m really beginning to feel the effects of age. I’ve gone about as far as I can go in sharing my story. But something is not right.I’ve been using computers since 1967 and had my first PC in 1990, but life has changed so much and I’ve not really felt comfortable using Facebook. Because of Aspergers Syndrome(?) I find face to face conversation difficult – I’ve been reluctant to use chat – and I’ve never used Skype. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had about 60 visitors to my blog. Less than 10 seem to have read more than the first page, and only one person has actually been in touch.It’s taken me a couple of hours to type this – a reflection of how I’m feeling. I guess I’m looking for some guidance. I did try and set up a group on Facebook but that wasn’t apparently the way to go.http://outsidethegoldfishbowl.wordpress.com
Peter, a lot depends on whether you are looking for more convenient means to express your views or are looking to have an online dialog with people. If you would like to express yourself in ways other than writing, there is always YouTube. You could create a YouTube channel and make some videos of yourself talking about stuff. If you are looking for on-line dialog, you probably will need to get into some aspect of social media (like Facebook). Or you could enter the rough and tumble world of being a frequent commenter on popular blog sites like Naked Pastor (and others). It is hard for a person to get their own blog site above that critical mass of being popular.
I love reading the stories of explorers, cartographers and pioneers. It is so similar to our spiritual journeys.
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