We are ever-becoming

We are never too old or too late for new beginnings

All throughout my twenties, I was involved in an extroverted, evangelical ministry. It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t really fit there. I remember the moment it was clear to me, though it would take years more for me to act on it. I was at a retreat, and the speaker, an Anglican priest, was talking about solitude. I don’t remember what he said; I remember the way he talked about faith and spirituality and how his way of being made me feel. And I remember feeling, from my head to my toes, that everything in me naturally leaned towards this contemplative way of being.

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

Looking back at that memory, at a glimpse of my childhood in Tokyo, at how I would find my way to books by Nouwen and other contemplative Christians and the mystics when I was new in my faith, and feel so at home in their words, continually confirms what’s always been true of me:

I’m a contemplative soul.

Sometimes we try on lots of outfits before we understand what colors and styles fit our skin tone and body shape. It’s natural to want to look back and feel annoyed or upset at entire decades or seasons of the wrong fit or style, but there’s another way - a gentler, kinder, and more helpful way to see it. We can look back and acknowledge that something didn’t fit quite well, how we tried to wear it anyway, and also acknowledge the layers, nuance, and grace woven within those times. All of it somehow helped to lead to evermore becoming of one’s true self and shape.

I used to feel shame over choosing and desiring roles and personality labels that I knew deep down, didn’t fit me. I’ve spent a lot of time squeezing into wrong-sized clothing while not seeing myself as I am. But all of this helped me learn to see better and know myself (and others) better, and those times weren’t wasted, they just weren’t meant to be forever for me. I grew and I received so much goodness throughout those years alongside of all the inner wrestling.

I just finished reading Sacred Companions by David G. Benner and it was so helpful to learn about the distinctions between discipleship, mentorship, counseling, and spiritual direction. Even when discipleship and mentorship were part of my job descriptions in the past, I look back and see how I was being a discipler or a mentor that probably resembled a spiritual director in more ways than I realized at the time. Of course the roles can overlap, but what came naturally to me and what I struggled with in those roles makes so much more sense to me now.

Last fall, I had the honor of mentoring a writer’s track for emerging bipoc writers of faith, through the inaugural PAX fellowship. I wrote about the experience and the beautiful people and their work and lives that I was able to bear witness to throughout that time here. Working with PAX gave me a chance to be around, learn from, and connect with contemplative Christians in a way I haven’t before outside of books or online interactions. It was a little homecoming for my soul. At our retreat in January at the start of this year, it became clear to me that I wanted to pursue spiritual direction: both being a directee and being trained to become a spiritual director.

Do you ever feel too old or too far along in whatever you feel entrenched in, to take a step towards coming home to yourself?

Here I am, well in to my forties, and suddenly sure of something I’ve always kind of known and have lived, but am only now ready to name and act on. It’s only now that the timing and resources and our family life work well with it all. Here I am, taking one step towards my own becoming. Here I am, saying yes to being a beginner, when it feels like all the world wants are the experts.

So, as I write this, I’ve technically started my first year-long cohort of spiritual direction. Right now, I’m working through the books in our required reading and enjoying it so much. Over and over again, I find myself exhaling. All of it feels like one little homecoming after another, and that helps me push back on the lie that I’m too late. Shalom is not bound by the lie of too lates, too old, and should be by now.

God’s shalom is always tending to our becoming.

God’s shalom is always reaching for our true selves, reminding us how intricately and intentionally we’ve been created in love.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

“The notion of becoming our true self-in-Christ emphasizes the fact that there are true and false ways of living. Most of us can identity ways we wear masks of our own creation. The fact that we are capable of thinking about how we want to behave in any given situation shows that we can make choices about this. Inherent in this choice is the fact that we can choose to live a lie; we can choose to pretend to be someone or something that we are not.

In his very helpful discussion of the true and false self, Basil Pennington suggests that my false self is made up of what I have, what I do and what people think of me. It is constructed, therefore, out of false attachments.

Stop for a moment and think about how you introduce yourself. It will tell you a lot about how you want others to see you. Whenever I invite people to see me in terms of what I have or do, I am living out of my false self.” —David G. Benner

It’s not too late to lean into God’s shalom at work in your soul and your story.

Our aging isn’t measured by how well we cover up any visual evidence of it. Our aging isn’t meant to make us grasp for youth or what was — it is another year after another year to rest in God’s perfect love and our identity as one who is wholly beloved. Our aging is a journey of ever-becoming who we truly are.

Our aging can be a love story between God’s shalom and our shalomsick hearts.

This year, this week, this summer, whatever your age and season in life, what part of your true self is reaching for you from the core of who you are?

Who are you becoming and how does this becoming align with who you’ve always been?

Grateful and shalomsick,