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'A Winding Road... Deerfield, MA'
Saying: To feel a need for closeness, being comforted, and for sharing ourselves with others is not a sign of weakness, of being less spiritual than we ought to be. This desire is a sign love is present. If love were not present, where would the desire for love come from? Only love can desire love. To feel this need is not to be needy - in denying the need one becomes needy. Therefore, it is best not to deny it but to welcome ways for this intimacy to be in our lives. And, if we do not start with a person, there is something we can let ourselves feel close to. Starting with an object, that is a good start. We may, then, discover the object is more than an object - that it lives, too, just like we do.
Another call from the bank. She leaves a message. I am on the road. It is cold. Snowing. I stop on this rural road. No traffic. I return the call. She tells me she had made a mistake, the information she needed - my new address - was already with the bank.
We continue to talk. She is from my hometown, with kin from my childhood neighborhood. She recalls me. I do not recall her, except by name. She visited a church near my home. She says she is a few years older than I am, and she is a widow. She refers to how difficult it has been for her to be isolated so much during the pandemic.
After our conversing about ten minutes, this dear one invites me to call her anytime, and I do the same in return. I sense this conversation was her reaching out from that need to share. The bank business was the context to welcome it. So, a mistake was a means. Later, during the night, I realized how much the sharing alerted me to how I desired such sharing too. I was alerted to how the isolation had isolated me.
So, I decided to give her a call and offer for sharing on a regular basis. We live over 1500 miles apart. Thankfully, as with the prior sharing on the phone, heartful fellowship occurs at any distance.
* * *
Sometimes, a person fades away, and we let the person fade away. Sometimes, a person comes forth, and we let the person come forth. We do not know who will leave or who will arrive. We do not assume we need to know. Persons arise from the Way, often in an unexpected manner, and not from us. We walk, and we see who shows up. We know someone will. Waiting is preparation to meet someone we need to meet and, possibly, they need to meet us. Sometimes, we are not ready, sometimes we are. It is taken care of, ready or not. We do our part, that is all. And, sometimes, our role is to do nothing. Yet, we are still walking, so we are always doing something, and someone is coming forth.
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October 12, 2009 -
Tonight, I met with a friend. I was home enjoying a beer and already settling in to get ready to rest. She called. I said maybe it was too late – it was about 9:20 PM. She affirmed "No" and "Come on over." I got in my truck and drove over.
What began as my sharing some matters of concern to me, and needing her guidance and encouragement, emerged into a reciprocating. The energy of the sharing deepened and intensified. To me, what felt like an initial heavy energy-field, or not flowing well, became a flowing, light, and luminous field of energy.
Mutual themes in our separate experience informed each other. What was felt was a mutuality of sharing - felt for this form of sharing is an embodied, sensual experience. That is, felt means there is a feeling quality and, thus, more than intellectual, or passing back and forth words and ideas.
Possibly, in a spiritual sense, that is what friendship is: A mutuality of sharing. This sharing is the New Testament koinonia. In such intimacy, Christ is conversing with Christ. Love naturally makes love with Love.
* * *
The Abbot Aelred (b. 1109) writes eloquently of this intercourse of thought and feeling, this mutual sharing, this koinonia. His monastic wisdom is common wisdom for us -
We have a clear duty to love all persons, and especially those who live closest to us. For the monk, this means especially the members of his community. But it is also clear that no one, not even the best monk, can find all the members of the community enjoyable; there will be some whom he must love as an act of will and intellect, without the consolation of being able to enjoy their company. Toward others, however, all things will work together to produce a kind of love which is a foretaste of heaven: the attraction, intention, and enjoyment will satisfy not only his discernment of what is right, but also his feelings of what is enjoyable.
*St. (Abbot) Aelred of Rievaulx. Spiritual Friendship. Trans. Sr. Mary Eugenia Laker. Quoted in Rhonda Chervin. Spiritual Friendship. Adapted for contemporary readers.
* * *
So, we are blessed to companion with persons who are causes of joy. We feel pleasure in their presence, so we enjoy their company. And we who are devoted to solitude, we still much need this communion-of-heart.
I modify one thing Aelred says. He says this sweet communion is a "foretaste" of heaven. I say, instead, it is the taste of heaven. In intimacy, heart-with-heart, we realize nirvana, bliss, the kingdom of heaven, our natural bliss-body, ...
We can enjoy this kind of intimacy most in aimlessness - relaxed sharing, not managing the process, but being-with. "Where is this going? What is happening? - I don't know." So, the sharing is fluid, not rigid, experience. See, this fellowship is not something, so it moves, and we move with it. Too, our thought and feeling are moving. Hence, there is a presence of the total self-functioning in harmony with another total self-functioning in harmony. Harmony meets harmony, the same harmony. Yet, how can this happen if harmony is not already present within each? So, we need to keep tending ourselves closely, daily.
* * *
In a book discussion weekly, I have seen how the discussion is a means of sharing, essence-with-essence. The book discussion is only the means. Thoughts are like sacraments. The structure sets a context for koinonia.
In the Way, we realize how we create many contexts to meet with others. So, the real reason we share is often not what we say but what we do not say. What we do not say, and may be unknown to us, is the reason. We all want to have a heart-felt communion, not merely an intellectual discussion or be working toward a common goal. We need and seek out intimacy-now. So, this is very impractical, yet it is profoundly practical in an impractical way.
* * *
Finally, we need insight into our need for this heart-with-heart sharing and how we camouflage it in our interactions - we may not even be aware we are seeking such connection. We mistake the process of the context for what we are most deeply desiring. We need to become aware, so we can separate the context, which seems to say one thing, and the heart, which says something else. Hence, this allows us to posture ourselves toward that deep need while honoring the context for how its structure provides a setting to relax and enjoy the sacrament of presence. So, hopefully, we can get underneath the skin of appearance and enjoy the undercurrent of communion.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
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