Getting off the ladder

There is no stairway to heaven

Photo by Meritt Thomas on Unsplash...

“The spiritual life is not about what you can achieve, but what you can receive.”

Henri Nouwen

It is hard to be spiritual without some desire for achievement to slip in. Many great mystics like Gregory of Nyssa and St. John of the Cross compared the spiritual journey to climbing a ladder to the divine. But ladder spiritually creates a conundrum between striving and ego. I am attracted (tempted?) to the idea of climbing the heavenly ladder and gaining skill, insight, and competence along the way. I am a credential junkie. I love researching how best to allocate my professional development dollars for maximum gain. Currently, my eye is on a Tara Brach Mindfulness Teaching credential which won’t fit into my budget at over $7000. Maybe the $50 mindfulness teacher’s handbook is good enough. But am I OK with being good enough?

And there it is, the ego rising in the East. The most insidious of the Seven Deadly Sins, pride, loves spirituality with ladders. If I am convinced I am on the way to the next rung toward the divine, I can justify all kinds of oversights.  I start thinking I’m further up the stairway to heaven.

I feel vulnerable to this kind of spirituality now because I am in the doldrums. The doldrums are a band near the equator prone to long periods with no winds, which would strand sailing ships for days and diminish food and water stores. I remember reading an intense scene from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” about a crew turning mutinous and losing their minds while sitting still in the doldrums. 

February is a month of doldrums here in Midcoast, Maine. Most of the shops in Boothbay Harbor have signs like “Gone ice fishing” in the window. Almost no restaurants are open, and the town empties as snowbirds go south for a few weeks. This weekend it was 25 degrees below Fahrenheit (-31 below Celsius). Sunday morning, a pipe broke, and the baseboard heat spewed gallons of water onto the church hall floor. We had to delay church because the Sunday School volunteers and bass section of the choir were mopping the floor and “wet-vaccing” the water. Last week I broke my windshield scraper, chipping away at the ice. 

These doldrums amplify my fears and frustrations. It is hard to be efficient and productive in the snow and ice. I think I shouldn’t let the weather dictate my motivation, but some days I don’t have any mojo. Part of the challenge is my spiritual life is enriched by nature. I just received “A Field Guide to Meditation in Nature” by Michael Coleman. Ironically it came on Friday right before the record-breaking bomb cyclone. No meditating in nature this weekend. Sorry, I’m meditating next to the wood stove. I feel guilty about pulling back, but I want to hibernate for six weeks.

My wife Jeanne had to move her mother into an elder care facility this month. It is disheartening to see a woman who has been a tower of strength with a quick wit become confused and struggle to express herself. Jeanne has been a champion at directing traffic, as this affects the entire family system. But I see how the grief hangs over her, knowing that she can’t really talk with her mother anymore. It’s hard to achieve anything amid grief. It’s not about me, but I can’t help but see my future ahead. Physical and mental diminishment is a reality on my horizon. 

Soon someone will tell me to stay off ladders because I’m too old and ladders are too dangerous for me. But that brings me back to the topic; maybe spiritual ladders are a temptation we need not climb. I was reminded by the beginning quote by Henri Nouwen, “The spiritual life is not about what we can achieve, but what we can receive.”

I saw Henry Nouwen preach some 30 years ago at the Newton Highlands UCC Church near Boston. Nouwen did not preach as much as he radiated life energy. He did not stand behind the pulpit and had no notes. Instead, he paced across the front of the sanctuary, waving his arms, bushy eyebrows waggling, effectively using shouting and whispering. The hook in the sermon was a story about being struck by a truck mirror while he was walking on the side of a narrow country road. Nouwen shared his fearful thoughts as he lay wounded in the ditch, “Is this it? I will die in a ditch after a hit-and-run accident, and no one will find my body for weeks.” Other theologians have had strange deaths. Thomas Merton died of electrocution when a fan fell into his bathwater. What kind of God would let this happen to some of the most faithful and creative disciples? 

My memory of the sermon is Nouwen traveled down the depths of his soul, faced the reality that he was just another fragile and mortal creature on the planet, and lecturing at Harvard Divinity did not offer special favor. By the time he was found and rescued, he remembered the scripture, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”  (Matthew 10:29). The great Henri Nouwen was just a sparrow, but God loves the sparrow too.

God is also present here in my doldrums in Maine winter. The spiritual ladders are too frozen and slippery to climb. (Memories of putting my tongue on the steel ladder to the monkey bars come to mind. Don’t lick the ladder!). So, I’m meditating on letting go and being present in this chilly moment. What do I need to receive? What do I need to let happen? I don’t have to climb to the top. I trust God will meet me right here at the bottom of the stairway.

Blessings to all of you in whatever February brings your way. May you receive grace upon grace.

Todd