Leaping

I’m now officially unemployed. Soon I’ll be homeless as well.

“It’s a leap of faith,” a friend wrote, “to leave something familiar and begin the next journey in our lives.”

Leaps of faith take many forms. Believing in God is one. Embarking on a quixotic hunt for God is surely another.

“Are you nervous?” people ask; many volunteer their fears.

Why should I be afraid? “Think of the flowers growing in the fields,” Jesus suggests in the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel. “They never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you?”

The sentiment has great appeal to my inner child. But I must admit, it stretches the adult mind—especially when juxtaposed with an old story told by Anthony De Mello in Taking Flight.

After a long journey, De Mello recounts, a disciple arrives at the tent of his Sufi master. The man dismounts from his camel, enters the tent, bows respectfully, and says, “So great is my trust in God that I have left my camel outside untied, convinced that God protects the interests of those who love him.” To which the Master counters, “Go tie your camel, you fool! God cannot be bothered doing for you what you are perfectly capable of doing for yourself.”

There’s the rub. What am I capable of doing (and discovering) myself? And what’s best left to providence? What requires action? And what demands stillness?

Those are the questions occupying my mind these days. As for concerns about how long the money will last and what I’ll do when the journey ends—I’m content to put those aside for now.

Another friend offered this advice, credited to various sources, including Barbara Winter, Edward Teller, and “anonymous”:

"When you have come to the end of all the light that you know and you're about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen to you. There'll be something solid to stand on or you'll be taught how to fly."

One consolation of age is the mounting awareness of how much I don’t know—and the corresponding sense that the unknown isn’t so dark. Yes, I’m stepping off. But I’m open to more than two possibilities. Time will tell whether I find solid ground, acquire wings, or come to something else entirely.