(e)mergent Voyageurs

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."  Thomas Merton

It is amazing the time and energy we consume in our lives trying to avoid suffering of all kinds. We get a headache, we pop a pill. We get a little hungry, we buy a candy bar. We feel tired and sluggish, so we drink that extra cup of coffee. Each of these seemingly insignificant choices reflect a deeper impulse that often guides our choices in more critical dynamics- relationships, faith, vocation and more.

I am not advocating that we look for suffering, seeking it out in some kind of masochism. Nor am I saying that we should allow needless suffering for its own sake. Rather, I wonder at times if have lost something important in our understanding of Christ's identification with and incarnation of humanity by giving it to our culture of comfort and self-protectionism.

Caught up in the "importance" of theology, ministry and truth, some of the most important seeds of hope, peace, grace and love are lost or ignored as the mundanity or inconveniences of everyday life. In fact, every moment holds within it the potential of divine purpose should our hearts and minds we fertile and willing soul to receive them. As you go into the rest of the week, make it a matter of spiritual discipline to be aware, not dismissing the seemingly unimportant, mundane or insignificant.

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."  Thomas Merton

Missional