What does it mean to follow some sort of spiritual path? From my experience, to seek to grow in my relationship with God, and to deepen my knowledge of my own particular religious traditions, is not always easy. One reason it is not easy, is because I am simply lazy , and refuse to move forward, to tread water so to speak. The problem being; treading in itself, takes a lot of energy, that goes nowhere, and in the end you either have to sink, give up, or start swimming again.

Treading is hard work, seeking to avoid doing what must be done in order to grow, deepen, and to perhaps even heal. There are all kinds of things that I do to tread water….my favorite, and the one that gives me little rest or consolation, is to simply become very distracted, to make it impossible for me to settle down, to just move from one “thing”, one “event” to another. When doing this, one moment seems disconnected from the next, it just blindly stepping forward hoping that whatever it is I will be doing will make me feel better. In the end of course this is an absurd situation, since I feel worse as time goes on. Scattering energy never works for very long; if it works at all.

Something analogous to this is something I experienced when I worked as a laborer for a few months, for a construction firm. It was in 1976. I left the Monastery for six months (a leave of absence, which was allowed at that time) and I was staying with my brother and sister-in-law for awhile, trying to figure some things out. So I got simple jobs to just make money to live on, but nothing permanent, since I knew that I was not going to stay in that particular area. I found that trying not to do my job, just being lazy, was actually harder than just doing it. No matter how boring the work was on some days, it was better to dive in and just do it, than trying to avoid the work boss and just doing nothing. So on bad days, I just made myself do my job; after a while I felt better, and time certainly went a lot faster.

I guess it is the same in the spiritual life, doing what I know I need to do; times of prayer, spiritual reading, writing in my journal.... just being in God’s presence brings me to a place were I feel I am at home; the events that happen during the day seem more connected, since I am more centered and focused in what I am doing. I don’t feel the urgency to escape the moment and flee into the next.

Trying to escape only increases the feelings alienation and rootless- ness that comes over me . It takes some effort to work against that wall of resistance to settle in, but as I get older I am learning to keep pushing, or perhaps to just keep on keeping on, and soon I will break thru, if not, that is ok also. Keeping on the path in a period of dryness is still better than wandering in the desert looking for an oasis to drink from. For the oasis in within, not without, a very hard lesson to learn.

I am still struggling with this, getting better yes, but I will probably be dealing with this till the day I die. Just like so many other things that I have to deal with......I am a piece of work no doubt about it.