We are but travellers here



A very wise old psychotherapist once told me that the work of the psychotherapist is to help people feel at home in the world, while the work of the spiritual director is to help people not feel at home in the world. If you are in anyway reflective, you will be aware of the “more than”. The presence of the “more than” can have varying and sometimes quite challenging effects on us. The “more than” inhabits every experience and every moment of everyday. We may not even be aware of its presence. Aware or unaware, however, it can make us restless. The restlessness might be manifest in consumerism, greed, selfishness, the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” thinking and a host of other unreal thoughts, words and deeds. The “more than” can, in other words, if not intelligently and realistically faced, be quite devastating. But it also can save us from the superficial and even destructive life. That restlessness can give rise to wonder, humility, magnanimity and a capacity to see beyond the immediate and live at depth.

The title of “pilgrim” seems a natural fit to human beings. Life continually summons us beyond the here and now. We are always leaving our family, leaving our hometown, leaving the culture that nurtured us, leaving a form of self that we had begun to think was our “real self”. The world of people, events and things will always have a strangeness about them. Strangest of all, I must constantly face the strangeness I discover within myself.

There is great wisdom in St Mary MacKillop’s well-known advice: “We are but travellers here”. Believing or not believing that truth, makes a huge difference to how we live out our days. For one thing, those who experience themselves as “but travellers here” – who genuinely and generously embrace life as pilgrimage – will know the value of travelling light. Some of the most difficult “possessions” to relinquish to lighten the load, are possessions of the mind and heart. We should not underestimate the challenge in this. Hearing the call of the “more than” and living the consequences, can be painful – even if it does bear the rewards of authenticity.

This is a central theme in the life and teaching of Jesus, reported in all the Gospels. Thus, today’s Gospel – Mark 6:1-6 – describes what must have been a painful experience for Jesus. He returns to his hometown “and they took offense at him”. Mark suggests there is an ongoing tension here. Earlier he tells us that Jesus’ family came to get him, thinking he was crazy: “When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind’” (3:20-21). In the same place, we are told that the scribes think he is possessed.

The words of Thoreau come to mind: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau, The Modern Library, 1937, 290).

Where do you encounter the “more than”? What effect does it have on you?



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Date
04 July 2021

Tag 1
Gospel

Tag 2
Story

Tag 3
Teaching

Source Name
Michael Whelan sm

Source URL
https://stpatschurchhill.org/...

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