New Companions

In the last few years some strangers have showed themselves on the journey of faith.  They go by the name of mystics and contemplatives.  Some of them are ancient from other centuries and others are more like contemporaries.  The ancient ones like the one who wrote "The Cloud of Unknowing"  have walked the road long before me and will not be seen until we gather there in the room of the heavenly throne.  And though it is unlikely, some of those who bear the imprint of these days may cross my path some day.  At times I feel their presence, but still have experienced nothing more than a sense that they are just up the road a piece.       

These new spiritual mentors are so different from the ones with whom I walked in days when being busy and racing ahead filled the view of my future.  The old mentors were more likely to be deemed successful large church leaders who were eager to tell others who were eager to hear how to do it.  There was nothing wrong with their insights and wisdom, they just kept me looking at the things of the doing lifestyle.    

These new sojourners who were once strangers have been encouraging me to slow down, to think and meditate, and more importantly to listen and pay attention to what is going on around and within me.  They are teaching me to see things I had not been seeing and to hear things I had not been listening to hear.  Most importantly, they have enabled me to know that God is not just present in certain days or certain places, but in every moment which I am blessed to know on this earth.  It is not always easy to put aside the years of my obsession with doing, but more and more these mystics and contemplatives are inviting me to look and listen and know the newness of the unfolding presence of God.