The Way of Love: Lessons From My Spiritual Journey

Before there was a Christian Religion, there was a growing cult that followed the teachings of a man who was believed to have been raised from the dead.

They simply called this cult “The Way”.  This name came from the statement of it’s founder who claimed that he was “The Way, The Truth, and the Life”.

This man was Jesus, a simple carpenter from the small town of Nazareth in northern Judea.

Before there was a New Testament, or a creed that men would fight and kill and die over, there was a simple message that resonated with the suffering poor, the disenfranchised, and even the rich but lost among both Jews and Romans.

It was the message of Love.

In order to embrace this message, one would have to let go of all they thought they knew. They would have to undergo an inner upheaval. One would have to be done with life as they knew it, ready to throw themselves down in a desperate appeal for help. One would have to arrive at that single moment of realization that there is no human way out, that one is boxed in and unable to extricate oneself without supernatural help.

One admits they are beyond human aid. They would have to surrender- which is another way of saying to die without dying.

For most, this path is long and arduous, often taking years. Like Dante, who found himself in a dark wood “in the middle of his life” many encounter this deep and existential crisis in middle-life. They would find that even to come to a place of surrender—a place where one is done with living in the pain and bleakness of one’s own efforts, they would need to be given the wonderful gift of desperation. Whatever it is that has boxed us in, we are offered the key to freedom.

When we have accepted we do not have an answer to the question life poses us, we then turn to whatever there may be that does. We become open to the idea of something greater than human. We become open to the idea of God.

It was this moment that drove me to my knees in desperation, and it was at this moment I was given the grace to hope in something beyond myself.

And, when hope enters—everything changes.

No, my outward life didn’t immediately change. It was a mess. But, in that moment that I dropped to my knees and asked for supernatural help, hope came flooding in. It was as if an inward light revealed a way that led to a different mode of living than I ever knew or experienced.

Hope led me to Faith—not a faith in dogmas or creeds, not the faith leading to joining a religion, but a faith that opened me up to accepting help .

Faith came to me indirectly— when I believed that another person believed and it was working for him. This was enough for now.

From there came action, for “Faith without Works is Dead”. I followed some very simple  directions:

1. Ask God every morning for help to do his will—whether I believed he heard me or not. Just do it.
2. Look for ways to be helpful to another human—whether I felt like it or not…just do it.
3. Thank God at the end of my day, and ask for help for tomorrow. Whether I believed he was listening or not… Just do it!

Over time, faith in this process became a personal trust and reliance in a benevolent God. I was no longer lost or despairing. I was connected to God and to His world .

This is when everything changed. Everything.

I began to experience the feeling of being cared for, no matter what was happening around me and in the world. My trust was not in my outward circumstances, or political leaders, but in the          one I had surrendered to.

This being became personal. This being took on a name. It was the same person who the ancient cult -the “People of The Way” followed. It was Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He who called himself “The Way, the Truth, and the Light.”

When I learned I no longer had to be pre-occupied with my own life, with finding my meaning, my purpose, my well-being, I was liberated.

The result of this liberation was a dramatic change of focus and attention. I did not spend my waking hours concerned about myself. Instead, because I now relied on God to care for me, I could look out into the world, towards my family, my friends, my neighbors, my co-workers, the clerk at the neighborhood store, to anyone my path would cross, and consider how I could be helpful.

What began as a simple daily exercise has over time become my life purpose. This is who I was always meant to be.

In discovering that my purpose was simply to seek to be helpful to someone, I had unknowingly joined “The People of the Way”.

Without a degree in divinity, I had discovered the meaning of all religions and theologies—the meaning of life.

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us” I Jn 4:16

The process to a joyful life is in some ways and degrees the same for all of us. It is the classical spiritual path from purgation(letting go of attachments to  wrong things and ideas) to illumination, to freedom, to union, to love. I don’t know of any shortcuts.

Personal failure and suffering drove me to the point of surrender. This resulted in the gift of hope, which lit the way to a faith in something other than myself. Over time, this faith, joined to action, became an abiding trust in a loving God. I have entered into the joy of life.

Ahh, but there is left one more continuing lesson: this pattern continues to present itself to me for re-application. Like an upward helix, I continually find area’s of behavior and thought patterns that cause me enough grief and discomfort that I readily ask for help, receive hope, take some action, and rely once more on the help of God to bring me to a new level of freedom and love.

And so it goes. The spiritual life is not a life of ease and comfort and chanting in the woods. It’s a journey of death—a death that always leads into another mode of living.

Kind regards,

Bob

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