Moving into Greater Light
“To get something without paying for it is the universal desire; but it is the desire of cowardly hearts and weak brains. The universe does not respond to the first murmured request, and the light of God does not shine under your study lamp unless your soul asks for it with persistent effort.” - A. G. Sertillanges
Our youngest has been playing Little League baseball for a handful of years, and alongside him, I have been learning baseball myself. While we're both learning baseball, what we're learning and how we're learning couldn't be more different and distinct. He's learning to become a baseball player, and I'm learning how to be a baseball spectator. So, while we are both learning and growing at "baseball," what we are learning to do is quite different. Both require some effort.
With each successive stage of Little League participation, young players are drawn up and into new elements of the game, into new real-world elements. (We might also say "deeper in.") Whether it's imagined as moving up or drawing closer to the ground of reality, the next level invariably introduces new complications and risks, which is also to say greater adventures, heartaches, and joys. Those dynamics are inextricable.
A kid who, last season, grew skilled hitting balls pitched from a pitching machine, with its mechanized regularity, on the new field now faces wild pitches chucked by another fellow learner, another 8- or 9-year old player. A "big hitter" on the easier playing field is plunged into the elementary tasks of learning on the more complicated one. It's not "back to zero," but my goodness, it sure looks like it at times. Still, no one learns to bat better without weening off the pitching machine.
With each team practice, with each competitive game against a real opposing team, the game forms the players, even as the players are ones making the game happen. Yes, coaches and parents yell, teach, and encourage, umpires make calls, but the players themselves are being formed in the game as the game forms them while playing. The necessary friction of that tensile correspondence is critical. Anything we practice forms us, which is why it's important to know what we're actually practicing, what game we are actually playing, to be aware of what is actually forming us.
I can be a pretty active spectator. I like knowing who's at bat, who's doing what out on the field. I love learning teammates' names, hollering happily for each of them, and clapping long and hard when they do something awesome as well as when they just hang in there when it's tough. When my husband and thousands of others ran the Berlin marathon years ago, I carried along a giant dinner bell, a plastic bucket and a drum stick, and a poster that read "You are running a marathon! That's incredible!"
An important part of being a spectator is knowing and accepting the joyful limits of my role. Yes, I can yell, but I cannot just yell anything I want. I also have to be attuned to the fact that one of my encouraging yelps might distract a player. Even though the story and drama seem pretty easy to grasp in theory from the stands -- "Catch it! Throw it to first!" -- it's quite another thing to be out there as a player, down on the ground of our lives, where each of us actually lives, where we try to live, listen, decide, and act. Though not identical, players and spectators need each other; each contributes to the other's formation. Both do better when they make efforts to stay awake and alive to the adventure of the game.
In an earlier newsletter, I mentioned that I was in a period of discernment about my program of study. I have long wished for a greater taste of community around my studies, to let the light and wisdom of real-live others populate my mind and heart. But wishing isn't acting, and I have been practicing taking measured steps towards engaging with others, stepping into greater light.
I'll likely share more about this discernment process soon; it's enough to say for now that it has done me great good to make my murmured requests a little louder, clearer, and more responsibly. It has required some courage and, thus, vulnerability. Each step hasn't been free of discomfort, but it has been, undoubtedly, a good and grace-filled path.
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What's bringing me joy:
Another Jen Pollock Michel book is entering its launching season! May I highly recommend that you pre-order her In Good Time and then let her know you did so to take advantage of her pre-order bonus?
Comment journal's podcast "The Whole Person Revolution," hosted by Anne Snyder is simply outstanding. Do, do, do subscribe.
This recent podcast discussion between author and writer-shepherd Jonathan Rogers and philosopher Jamie Smith touches on time, human finitude, and some good news to combat shame. It's good. The whole podcast is terrific.