Travel Light

"The journey is arduous, and you must travel light if you would reach the goal," wrote Carol Flinders in her book about female mystics from the medieval era. That statement has plagued my mind several times a day for the last two weeks. Travel light. Travel light. Travel light. It's like a mantra or a melody that's stuck in my head. It rears its ugly head whenever I glimpse the ungodly mountain of dirty laundry in our closet, the moldy food in the fridge, the xmas lights still on the stairway banisters. Basically anything I try to procrastinate or anything that requires delayed gratification provokes the "travel light" statement. Life would be much "lighter" if I would learn to stop procrastinating and at times learned to delay gratification. But it doesn't stop there. I wish it did.

There's a greater yearning within me for stillness that resides somewhere underneath all the commotion, distractions, compulsions, affirmations and rejections that fill up a day or week. But alas, I chock my schedule so full that I rarely stop to listen to my own voice -- the voice that is really me, not me as I imagine myself to be, or the me that tries to control how others perceive me, but the me that actually is. What is it that I'm really craving when all my compulsive distractions erode or are ignored? I depise that restless wanting that wants some unnamed something. Especially when there are millions of substitutes screaming to fill the slot. Touch me, taste me, drink me, buy me.

The spiritual discipline that I've grown to love and hate the most is that of solitude. I'm not talking about privacy or personal retreat for the sheer sake of privacy and personal retreat (although being an introvert I love those things too). I'm referring to the spiritual solitude that requires me to face me, to allow the dark and destructive side to starve and die and to allow God's grace to breathe life into me once again. I love the outcome, but I hate crossing that threshold. every. single. time.

This morning I was reading The Way of the Heart by one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen. Many of his works deal with inner silence and solitude but this book in particular builds upon the fourth and fifth century monks and their spiritual quest for wholeness in the desert. Nouwen makes a profound observation about solitude and its ironic conclusion. True spiritual solitude results in a deeper compassion that one learns to inhabit and embody rather than just talk about. The result is that solitude drives us to connect more deeply with people rather than to withdraw and hide from those around us. Spiritual solitude has a way of breeding a true compassion that sets us free to be fully available to people, to journey with others through life without judgment or condemnation. And finally, solitude creates a space in and around us that hopefully invites others to come and find their own healing and wholeness. Solitude is a great leveler (is that a word?). Maybe humbling is a better word. Solitude with God humbles me and reminds me that we are all in some way or another longing for the same things in life, and we all have some level of inner darkness or pain that must be faced if we are ever to be whole and free.

I have found this to be true in my own life, even though I have to relearn the lesson over and over again. All my restless wantings remind me lately that I need to unload some internal baggage and learn once again to sit still. Travel light. Because, truly, the journey is arduous, and in all my yearnings, I yearn to reach the goal. Thankfully God will give me a second chance for the hundredth time.