Searching for Something

 I have this memory of being at the beach with my husband.  it was sometime in the last 20 years.  We were lying on a blanket in the sand.  I was reading a book and taking notes in a notepad.  And my husband said something like, "It seems like you are searching for something," or "What are you searching for?" or "It looks like you are on some kind of a search."  I don't know what he said.  But I think it is one of the first times that someone else commented on a dynamic that as I look back on my life I realize has been there for a long time.  IN SEARCH OF ...

When did it begin?

I think I am wired to be a little on the isolated side, so "searching" became a sort of natural response to this strange feeling of being isolated and yet not wanting to be isolated.  I'll blame it on the DNA.  My father was a gregarious extrovert who loved attention.  My mother was painfully shy and wanted more than anything to be invisible at all times.  And so these two "people" seem to argue over who will have possession of me from one day to the next.

Anyway ... my earliest memories of being "religious" were in middle school.  My eldest brother was a born-again and began taking me and other people in our youth group to coffee houses on Saturday nights.  (Not coffee houses like Starbucks; coffee houses like candles and guitars and somebody singing and somebody preaching and somebody praying.)  They used to do an "invitation" at the end -- you know, like an altar call with no altar.  And I don't think I really understood what I was being invited to.  But one time, my brother asked me, had I asked Jesus into my heart.  I lied and said yes, lol.  But then I guess I sort of understood this altar call thing.  And yet I had little to no guidance; I just bumped along in isolation, suddenly thinking pretty highly of myself, because I had asked Jesus into my heart and probably no one else in my school had attained such spiritual wisdom (this is what my 12 year old brain sounded like).  Eventually my interest waned, mostly because I was a teenager and my parents divorced and I only attended church after that on my weekends with my Dad, but it didn't feel like anything special other than being forced to go to church.

I guess things really took off when my husband (but we weren't married yet) insisted we go to church.  At the same time, a friend in college invited me to a Bible study.  At the Bible study, there was some serious indoctrination gong on, only I didn't realize it at the time.  Some of the things that were passed off as spiritual truth don't really stand up to my understanding of the faith today, but darned if the experience didn't get me into the habit of reading and studying the Bible.

Next I remember sitting in my rocking chair in the mornings before work, praying.  Maybe I'd read the Bible a little too (this was before internet and kindle and such).  And my boss was also a born-again whose beliefs definitely rubbed off on me (or at least or enthusiasm for the faith).

Then I had this super-natural kind of "speaking prophesy over me" experience with a family member at a "spirit-filled" service.  And I kept waiting for the gift of tongues to arrive, but it never did.  I was ... confused?  Disappointed?  Something like that.

This was my early 20s.  And from then on, the search never ceased.  There was never a time when I wasn't in a study, or teaching, or reading, or dipping a toe into new spiritual experiences.  And I know logically that the search will never be over.  Like, oh, NOW I have arrived and have attained the level of spiritual truth and am completely full-up and cooked.  No, not even on the other side of eternity, I don't think that will ever happen.

Two and a half years ago I met a wonderful woman who also seemed to be someone constantly in the search.  She was a mentor of sorts for me for nearly two years and I loved our conversations.  I miss them terribly to this day.  And yet in the way she constantly encouraged me to seek connection and intimacy and answers and guidance from God alone, I can recognize that missing those deep conversations is really an extension of my path of searching that is meant to lead me ever forward into a deeper experience and intimacy of God.

I work for a church.  But surprisingly there are not a lot of deep conversations about "What is God doing in your life?"  It's more about, "How can we engage our members into deep conversations about what God is doing in their lives?"  Hmmm.  I will share in the blame.  It feels like I am going 90 to nothing all the time.  When are these conversations supposed to happen?

All of these thoughts came about today because of a book I am reading.  The chapter I'm on is all about humankind's inner knowledge of the divine and the journey of unearthing it.  And I had this amazing realization once again about how ultimately unsatisfactory it is to look on the outside as opposed to on the inside for the divine presence.  I'm not saying I am divine; or that everything I need to know about God is already "in" me.  I'm saying the divine presence (presence!) is in our DNA. ("Created in God's image, remember?) The trick I suppose is to search within without naval gazing and convincing one's self that one has the secret  knowledge within (which I'm quite certain I do not).

I better wind this up.  I'm supposed to be draining the hot tub.  Here is an idea I came across today as I was reading, which for me speaks perfectly to my life's experience as far as searching goes.

"They sensed that there was a Something indwelling -- a Something with a capital "S," Something that had a voice, Something that could impart, Something that could reveal, and so they learned to be attentive."

And so the search continues ... for Something.  But it's not a search that's like, "Dang it, where did I put my glasses?  I can't find them!"  It's a search in which I gather and grow as I go and experience more and more hunger.  At least today that's the way I see it.