Difficult times on the journey.
What does the journey of meditation mean in terms of our experience?
We experience it,
Of course,
Like every journey,
Through stages and different kinds of journeying.
Just think of any journey you make,
You're driving on the highway from A to B,
You go through different kinds of traffic conditions,
You go through different landscapes,
You may even get in trouble with your car and you have to get it fixed,
But every journey we make is different and every part of the journey is different,
And it all adds up to what we call the journey.
There are different experiences of covering the ground,
And every journey involves that,
Covering the ground,
Fulfilling one's destiny,
Doing what you are meant to do in your span of life,
Including difficult times when we seem to be stopped,
Or blocked,
Or even lost,
Don't know where we're going,
Find that we took the wrong turning and we're actually going back,
We're regressing.
So all of those are contained within the integrity of our journey,
And if we only want nice experiences on the journey,
Then we're going to be disappointed.
But these difficult times,
Or dark times,
Or dark nights,
Or achadia moments,
These contain the seeds of new life.
At the time,
Of course,
They may be difficult,
Painful,
Dry,
Empty,
With a sense of loss or abandonment.
So these dark or difficult times,
They nevertheless contain the seeds of new regeneration and further progress.
So everything works together for good for those who love God,
St.
Paul says.
Loving God in this context could be said to mean being wholeheartedly committed to the journey itself.
Not to complaining unnecessarily about it,
Or discontented because you're not getting what you want,
But embracing everything that life offers you.
Learning to meditate is learning how to live.
John Lane says that when we meditate,
We accept the gift of our own being as a whole,
As a packet.
It's not about cherry-picking the nice,
Happy moments that we put on Facebook,
Convince everybody that we are totally happy,
Popular,
And contented people,
But it's accepting the whole of ourselves,
The whole of the mystery of life,
Which is ultimately unpredictable.
So these dark times can contain great seeds of light.
So the criterion for a good journey,
For making the journey of life in a fully human way,
Is not that it's always easy,
Not that we're always happy,
But how we handle the difficult times and how we handle them,
Above all,
With faith.
This is something that St.
James expresses in a rather Buddhist-sounding way in the first part of the Letter of St.
James,
When he says,
Count yourselves as fortunate when difficult times and challenges come to you.
Count yourselves as fortunate when these difficult times come,
Because they are going to deepen your faith and shape your character,
And they're going to bring you growth and grace.
