Solitude part 2
I love camp fires, especially late in the summer. You know when it gets cold at night and its that perfect temperature to sit by the fire, feel the warmth, but not get swelteringly hot like in July. I have always found it so easy to sit and reflect beside a fire. It reminds me of those nights when I was younger at Kadesh. We would sit around the fire and long to sing songs for hours and hours. I remember singing, Father of Lights, an old song now I'm sure, and watching God amaze us with the most spectacular display of northern lights. Those where good times. I felt God so close in experiences like that when I was young. I wish I could say that my time at Ranger Lake was just like those moments around the fire when I was younger, with just as much a deep spiritual connection to God. But I can't. Instead, I felt nothing at all like that. I find it interesting that the experience I am going through right now comes at the same time as I read this blog today over at nakedpastor. Mother Teresa Me and You. It speaks of the struggle Mother Teresa went through without sharing, a heavy burden that she shared with no one. The article states something interesting, "Now that she is no longer with us and her letters are being published, perhaps the next and most important leg of her ministry will begin: giving people permission to express their spiritual struggles and inner torments." While I don't know where I am on this journey, or as St.John of the Cross calls it, a "Dark Night of the Soul," what I do know is this: we must be free to share struggles, to be allowed to question, and to even doubt God's presence in our lives. Openness and vulnerability are things which we need even more in our communities of faith. That is how I try to write on this blog....
So while I didn't feel a deep spiritual connection around the fire at Ranger, I did notice something...the fire was bright, it was hot, but for some reason I keep having to trek into the woods for more fire wood. I noticed I had to do this quite alot in the first hour or so. It reminded me of my personal faith....the fire can be extremely hot, and bright, but I must continue to hike, trek, and put fuel onto the fire or it will burn out. So while I don't always feel God's presence or get a great spiritual experience, I must keep fueling the fire. I read in Pete Grieg's book "God on Mute," about a man who lost all taste for food. Eating gave him no pleasure, but to survive he had to keep eating, therefore, so must we continue to seek out truth, to pray, to seek times of solitude. They are the fuel for the fire, even if we have lost that connection. For one day we will be made complete, we will taste and see once again.
