“Circling,” Part 1 [Mth 2-Day 22-Post 17]

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”  – T.S. Elliot, The Four Quartets

“All my life’s a circle.” – Tom Chapin

In December of 2002, I moved to Georgia in search of one thing: discipleship. The training that all believers require to follow the Master, the Christ. Now more than ten years later, here I am again—in training. Well, do we ever really stop training? No, I think not. And as T.S. Elliot points out, if we think we’ve reached the end, it’s really just the beginning. I guess going in circles isn’t as bad as we thought, right?

Sometimes I feel like situations or circumstances or relationships, etc., come “full circle,” as if they’ve found a way back to the beginning but in such a way that finds closure, completeness, fullness, and quite often by doing so in a way that I don’t expect. Even now as I write, I realize how it is happening, right before my typing fingers, and all I can do is smile, and maybe laugh out loud a little. Because, God is good, after all. And He always finishes what He starts.

In March of 2001, I met a man named Jim. It was under rather odd circumstances; on the radio I heard about a “revival meeting” he was going to host at a hotel in a not-too-distant town in Massachusetts and felt the need to go, to take a step out of my comfort zone, and to take a few others along for the ride. I arranged to meet two friends there, but I arrived early, having come directly from work. I was sitting in the lobby outside the meeting room reading a book when I watched a group of people setting up a table with books and such. I got up and casually strolled by the table glancing at the items, trying to be inconspicuous. Then, this strikingly sincere man, Jim, walked around the corner out of the meeting room and introduced himself and the other folks to me. He said they were about to go get a cup of coffee and some dinner before the meeting started; he asked if I wanted to join them. I respectfully declined, holding up my book to indicate my previous engagement. Jim all but shouted at me, “Get rid of that spirit of fear, and come with us!” Okay, okay. He gave me a start, but hey, it was nice to be wanted!

There was something about Jim, I tell ya. He had this presence that commanded my attention, that made my spirit stand up and salute. Okay, whatever you want, Jim. As if I wasn’t scared enough already, I then began pouring out my guts to this guy. I don’t even know what came over me. Maybe he asked one question, and suddenly he heard my life story. He wanted to hear it, too. He listened with careful concern and gentle, focused eyes. I wasn’t sure if God Himself was hearing me, seeing me through Jim’s lenses. And then it was Jim’s turn to talk. And I listened.

A whirlwind of words, my spirit took them all in, drank them, wanted more. And yet, it was like drinking vinegar. In sum, Jim said I had it all wrong. Everything I had shared about what I was doing with my life, the choices I’d made, the things I was doing to try to please God. He all but told me to drop everything, about face, and do it all completely…differently.

“What?!!! Are you crazy?! You must be mistaken,” I thought. I certainly wasn’t about to say that out loud to a complete stranger. So I just calmly listened, thinking the whole time, “This guy is nuts.”

Maybe that’s the problem with thinking. I do it too much, too often, too hard. Hm. That sounds familiar.

When it comes to matters of the Lord, I really must learn to listen to my spirit more. To be trained by the impressions and the longings of my spirit, instead of just the logical conclusions of my mind.

Do you remember how I recently found my Writer’s Notebook? How, inside its folders I found a number of stapled groups of paper? Some were chapter drafts. Some were other writings. Like a printed email exchange with Jim, starting in January 2003 and ending in December 2005. Almost two years after we first met, I wrote him a lengthy email, and this concluded it:

…But I am extremely stubborn at times, and I would not listen. On top of that, I was just plain scared—scared that I had totally missed God on my own, scared that I might listen to a stranger and change my course overnight because someone (not God) told me to, scared that what you said might be true—and I would have to change. Of course, none of my fears are excuses but reasons for my definitive response. I had left a charismatic church after graduating college to seek a more intellectual rather than emotional faith, and you were messing it all up. All this to say, Jim, that I am so sorry for just not listening. I couldn’t hear you and didn’t want to….Please do forgive me and put my heart at rest.

By the time I wrote that, everything about my previous life in Massachusetts had changed 100%, just as he’d predicted, and I was now living with strangers in Georgia.

What was it that Jim said that I was so afraid of? What predictions did he make that entirely came to pass?

To be continued…