This is half of a story. The other half is about heartbreak and this is not the place for that tale. This is a story about hope.
While I was on my sabbatical, I prayed frequently for clarity and direction. I would eventually learn that you better make darn sure that’s what you really want before you pray for something like that, but I was in the naive bubble of rest and renewal.
As some of you might know, I spent the last weekend of my sabbatical on a silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. It was amazing; a weekend that nourished and focused my soul. It was an introvert’s paradise that allowed me to read, write, hike, go to prayer services with monks, and not have to talk to anybody.
Often I would find myself staring at an evergreen tree outside the window of my room. Throughout the weekend, that tree would sway in the breeze. It was so quiet and peaceful and I would become transfixed by the gentle motion. For the first few days, I would not even think about it. I just rooted myself in my chair and watched the invisible push and pull the branches.
Contemplating the tree on Sunday morning, an old song came to my mind and it made me roll my eyes a bit. “Mind’s Eye.” dc Talk. 1995. Teenage me loved that song. It was on the same album as “Jesus Freak” but it was a deep cut, so it was for, you know, the really spiritual youth group kids. And it had a more mystical vibe to it. Or at least what qualifies as “mystical” when you are kid in a Southern Baptist youth group in 1990s South Carolina.
The song contained a sample from a Billy Graham sermon and that’s what popped into my head watching the tree in the breeze: “Can you see God? Have you ever seen Him? I’ve never seen the wind. I’ve seen the effects of the wind. But I’ve never seen the wind. There’s a mystery to it.”
Billy Graham was followed by remembering the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma. Words used for the Spirit of God but that also meant wind or breath. Spirit and wind, wind and spirit. The image of the Spirit-swayed tree held in my mind throughout the afternoon.
In the early evening, I was sitting out in the garden and the gentle breeze accelerated into a strong wind. Now outside, I looked up at my tree; its branches now bending beneath an invisible intensity. All this afternoon, I had been praying for clarity and direction; eyes to see and ears to hear. And now I felt like the wind was showing me what I needed to see.
“Wait, is that it? Is that what You’re telling me?” I said this out loud. To the wind. Maybe I did this because I barely said a word beyond chanted prayers all weekend. Regardless, I didn’t get an out loud answer to my out loud question, but in that moment I truly felt like I was being told that I was going to get to see God move in an incredible way, the Spirit would rush in and bring the branches of my world to life. This way of thinking is not normal for me. I am actually pretty skeptical of such things, but that was the clear sense that I had in that moment.
I felt excitement and hope and began to dream about what might happen when I got back from sabbatical.
Thirteen brutal days later, I was cleaning out my office. That clarity and direction that I was praying for? It hit me like a ton of bricks. My eyes were opened to the hard reality that it was time for me to move on and I had no clue to what. That’s the story of heartbreak. It’s long and complicated and not one I want to rehash at this moment. Suffice to say, resigning from a vocation I loved is not what I dreamt in that monastery garden.
I lugged another box out to my car and wiped the sweat that was pooling on my brow. Frustrated, I shut my eyes tight and muttered out some kind of prayer. Something between “Help” and “What the heck, God?” Maybe “hell.” I might have said “hell.” Knowing how I felt, I most definitely said “hell.” I took a deep breath, held it in, and then opened my eyes. The wind was howling. The trees in front of the church were swaying violently. I remembered. And for a moment, I hoped and I believed.
This is not to say that I believe God made the wind fierce any of those days just for me. God did not make thousands in Nashville lose power so that I could feel better about a crappy situation. But scripture is littered with prophets and leaders and kings and God pointing to rainbows, rocks, rivers, cups, and bread and saying, “Remember what God has done. Remember when it felt like the holy was intertwined with earth.” I saw the wind and I remembered.
So I am going to choose to hope and believe that what I experienced in that garden was true. Even though this hurts and it does not look like what I imagined, I will witness God move in a beautiful way. It will be wherever my two feet land. And it will be in the community that I got to serve for the last six and a half years. I don’t know how or when or how much heartache will have to be endured, but it will happen. By the grace of God, I will hold on to that hope.
“To hope is to risk frustration. Make up your mind to risk frustration.” - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
