Integration

During my first four months on the road—when I haven’t been visiting friends—I’ve gravitated to scenic areas with few people and plenty of room to roam. I suppose that’s a nod to what I keep hearing: that Divinity is often more accessible in nature.

While hiking in the Grand Tetons, I met Mike, Heidi, and their four children (ages 12-20), from Lansing, Michigan. “We’re Lutherans,” Mike confessed. “So we believe in a God of mercy.”

I jokingly asked what he’d done lately to warrant mercy. But he took me seriously, admitting to some struggles in his faith. He had a hard time when a son was diagnosed with diabetes three years ago. These days, he can’t seem to reconcile why God would allow his “only son” to be crucified, when he (Mike) would do whatever he could to prevent harm to any of his children. Despite the questions, however, he said God was a source of “peace and serenity”—feelings that were heightened in places like this.

“But it’s like I have two lives,” he reflected. “A ‘regular life’ with all my responsibilities—which is full of distractions—and a ‘spiritual life,’ which is much more tranquil.” Two days later, a woman I met while kayaking on Yellowstone Lake made a similar observation.

“Maybe we’re focused on the wrong things,” I suggested to Mike. “Theologians say it’s impossible to know the mind of God. Wouldn’t we be better off trying to integrate those two lives—and emanating the love we feel when we’re connected to the Divine?”

“Let me know when you’ve figured that out,” Mike laughed.

If, by the end of my travels, I do figure it out, I’m not sure it would do Mike any good. Everyone’s journey is unique. If what I learn and share can be of some benefit, great. But that’s not my expectation. What I do hope is to remind others of their divine origin—and invite them to embrace and enjoy their own spiritual quest.

My exploration process—whether reading, conversing, or just wandering in the woods—is to distill what I see and hear and feel into nourishment that helps me live in alignment. In recent weeks, I’ve been reflecting on a passage from Chapter 56 of Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching (translated by Stephen Mitchell):

“Close your mouth,

block off your senses,

blunt your sharpness,

untie your knots,

soften your glare,

settle your dust.

This is the primal identity.”

The more I consider those words, the more deeply they resonate. The intentional act of closing my mouth, blocking off my senses, blunting my sharpness, untying my knots, softening my glare, and settling my dust puts me in a much keener state of receptivity. I’m more conscious of my spiritual essence—and better able to marry the sacred with the secular.

The goal—as both Mike and I concluded—would be to so integrate our regular and spiritual lives that they are virtually indistinguishable. But that’s no small task—even when the daily demands are minimal. Getting there may require a letting go of previously fixed notions—some unlearning on our part.

“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,” writes Rilke, “then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.”

What would I hope to embody?

My short answer is influenced by the vast number of people who’ve had near-death experiences, all of whom characterize the Divine force in just two words: “Unconditional Love.” To embody God—to fully integrate our regular and spiritual lives—is, quite simply, to love unconditionally. All the time.

I just wish that were as easy to do as it is to recognize…

(Grand Marais, MN)