Woe Is Me For I Am Undone!

"Here am I! Send me. -Isaiah

"ASK ME"

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
-William Stafford

Quiet contemplations are the way of mystics. Apocalyptic outbursts are the way of prophets. Yet they are both men of the desert. Praying in caves, meditating on mountain tops, trembling before bushes that never seem to burn. Of late I have heard much talk of "one's call." For some, calling is irrelevent. For is it not in the end a subjective response to what one thinks they have experienced? With others calling is everything. They stake their very futures upon it. They are compelled, drawn and at times driven into the desert. I readily admit I am more like the latter. Though I hold no ill will towards those who believe "calling" is only a figment of one's imagination. All I can say is that if he had not called I would not have known where to go.

It was Parker Palmer who put me onto Stafford's poem, "Ask Me." There is something etheriel in those words, "Ask me whether what I have done is my life." Palmer is so stable (you would expect that from a Quaker). He likely fits the bill as a modern mystic for there is much contemplation in him. He reflects, "Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent." Granted there is much danger if one accepts Palmer's words from the Quaker perspective of reaching "self-consciousness" (my interpretation of Quaker philosophy). But if one realizes like Isaiah that it is God-consciousness that we must become. Then there is something here for those of us on a contemplative journey to commune with God in the desert.

Are we not complete in Christ? Without him we are only vaguely human, un-beings if you will. It is only upon having a close encounter of the highest kind that we become truly human. Then we become God's echo, the image-bearers of God (as it was always meant to be). This can not become a reality without a rift being torn in the cosmic fabric of our being. To encounter him is to be broken by him, horrified of ourselves (I am unclean) and terrified of him (I am undone). Yet amidst the chaos he speaks or more appropriately he "calls." For Moses it was a burning bush, with Samuel it was hearing voices and sleepless nights or Paul surrounded by bright lights on a dirty road to Damascus. Were they not all called? How could I not say, "Here am I send me." I readily admit I'm still not sure if they were my words or his. It consumes me, compels me, at times I've wondered if it will kill me. Has it not become me? Or should I say, I have become "it." It is my life, I have no other, nor seek none, can not imagine one. There are not multiple dimensions for me. For I am a man of a single dimension. I know that sounds so small. But I am small. God give me contentment in smallness. Suffer the little children to come to me (Jesus). I am that child chasing him down a dusty street for I hear his voice carried on a silent wind. He carries me.

This does not resolve our question, though it is sufficient for my quest. That is the question of the "call," relevent or irrelevent? Can we consider this objectively in a sea of subjectivity? One thing may help us. Obedience. Isaiah had to behave. He could not remain unchanged. Humbly we prostrate ourselves that the plague of sin be purged. "The uncreated Image, buried and concealed by sin in the depths of our souls, rises from death when, sending forth his Spirit into our spirit, he manifests his presence within us and becomes for us the source of a new life, a new identity and a new mode of action" (Thomas Merton). I am disturbed by those who profess some "call" yet are too proud to recognize their own disobedience. Their stubbornness is stifling. Thankyou, to every man and woman who has helped confirm in me the "call." With gratitude I praise you for not only building me up but for also seeing the necessity of tearing me down. Behavior matters. Woe is me if I am not undone. Sola Gracia, WHB