Compass Points

“No matter how much light I carry within me, there will always be times of feeling lost, being confused, seeking direction. It is the way of the human heart.

-- Sister Joyce Rupp, O.S.M.

I met with a new chaplain the other day.  We talked for a bit and he said he was looking to me for direction.  I just smiled, "I think your compass, Father, is much better than mine."  When the topic of one's "direction" comes up, I am always reminded of a man, an older Army vet, during one of my meetings, who asked for a few minutes of my time afterwards.  He sat across from me at the table when everyone else had left Sunday group, fingers laced on top of his bible.  "I'm looking to you for direction, Pastor." 

I took my index finger, reached across the table, and touched the man just above the bridge of his nose.  "Use your compass," was my response.  "I don't know 'where' you are, so how can I show you the way?"  He smiled, confused by my answer, and replied, "I think my compass needs calibration."  At this I laughed and he proceeded to discover why he was, which had great bearing on where he was.  Often, when we feel lost, where we are is usually based on our denial of why we are.  Where he was turned out to be what he already knew - he was sitting across from me, and rediscovering his path.

Even a blind squirrel will eventually find a nut, but sometimes it could use some help feeling it's way.  Even if we're blind, the one thing we can all be certain of is where we are.  In this way we can never say that we are lost.  We might be confused, turned around or just unable to see, but we are never lost to ourselves, only to others who don't know where we are.  Where we are is never truly the question, it is more important that we know why we are.  You will always be certain you are here.  Why you are here will usually define where here is and, with that, where we need to go.

“I got lost, but look what I found."

-- Irving Berlin (1888-1989), composer, songwriter

There was an older gentleman who kept getting into trouble with the law, going to jail, or prison, praying to God for help, getting out of jail, getting a good job, getting into trouble, going to jail, praying to God for help, yadda, yadda, yadda.  He said that, while he was in prison, he carried his bible constantly and assumed this was why other inmates left him alone.  

As an older man, he was six foot and a bunch, all of 250 plus pounds and, though soft spoken and showing vulnerability, still looked capable of taking care of himself.  Yeah, the bible might have contributed, a bit, to the other inmates leaving him be.  He struck me as not a bad person, just a person making bad decisions.  As I sat there smiling through his long tale of repetitive woe, he kept a good grip on his bible and finally asked why God doesn't help him and why I kept smiling.

I apologized for smiling, but I just couldn't help it, as he was constantly answering his own question while he told the story.  I explained that each time he was incarcerated God helped him to endure until his release, at which point God helped him get a good job, at which point he continued throwing these gifts he had asked for back in God's face.  He sat there and stared at me as his eyes welled up with tears.  This big man put his arms in the air, cried, and began praying for forgiveness.  We just calibrated his compass, but he had to tell me where he was.  But, ask yourself, if he could tell me where he was, why couldn't he find his own way? 

"Ye can not see the wood for trees."

-- John Heywood (1497-1580), playwright, poet, musician

There is a difference between where we've been, where we are, and where we are going.  Where you've been can help explain why you are where you are, but there are time when where you want to go requires a landmark, something to guide you on your path.  God kept giving him landmarks and he simply didn't see them.  No one can save you but yourself.  Others can point out the landmarks you're missing, but you have to be willing to see them.  It truly is about not seeing the forest for all the trees blocking it.

“What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?”

-- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), artist

Turkish playwright and novelist, Mehmet Murat İldan, is quoted as saying,  "We are doomed to live the feeling of being lost because temporal beings are doomed to feel this way; this is something that transitory bodies cannot avoid!"  Insofar as we speak of the common human condition, I would say he is right.  Most of us cannot rise above the weaknesses which we fall prey to, fear being the worst.  I think most of us fear not being in control, being lost.  We are, as he states, temporal beings at the mercy of time and our corporeal selves.  For most of us it would seem we are here but to live and die, and always too soon.

On the other side of the argument, French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) stated, "The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere."  Mehmet would have us be everywhere, not tied down as "temporal beings," whereas de Montaigne would have us fulfill what I said might be, for many, all we can hope for, to live and die.

"Getting lost is part of getting there."

-- Marty Rubin, author

Those who follow my writing know that I will fall in line behind Mehmet's idea but, again, to a point.  I think we allow ourselves to be doomed because we have lost the understanding of what he continues to say, "...this is something that transitory bodies cannot avoid!"  Read it again.  Did you catch it?  He is addressing our "transitory bodies," not our minds, our souls.  What he seems to be hinting at is we are only temporal beings while we are in these "transitory bodies."  This I fully agree with, and this is where our compass requires calibration.

When you learn to read navigational charts, you find there are several different ways to read it; one might get you lost.  If you are directly south of your destination on a chart, you might assume you can use a compass to get there by just going by the north arrow.  But if you were able to put that compass on a life-size globe, you'd find it is off a bit.  The earth's magnetic field will mess with you.  In navigation you not only have to allow for winds, and those pesky lines of magnetic variation, or isogonic lines, the value of which must be added or subtracted from you true heading.  This will then give you the magnetic heading which will bring you right to where you want to be, providing you're traveling by foot.  Vehicles have their own errors of deviation to be accounted for.   What does this have to do with our personal, mental compass?

We were given a genetic compass by the grace of creation, some would say by the grace of God.  Everything we need to survive was written across our hearts and minds.  So, it's written into our genetic code?  Well... yes and no.  God gave us the "moral compass," but remember all those pesky errors of deviation, variation, and windage?  Remember when you were told that God does not make mistakes?  Remember Genesis 3:22-24?

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

-- Genesis 3:22-24

I think the information God downloaded onto our hearts and minds was a mod, a modification to our program. We were originally programmed to dutifully head north, so to speak, but we were susceptible to deviation, variation, and windage; we had become like the gods, knowledgeable of good and evil. Simply removing us from Eden would not prevent us from eventually discovering, eating from, the Tree of Life and living forever. So, the "modification" was downloaded and we were told to obey our programming, which kind of worked except for those pesky ghosts in the machine which just kept cropping up.

"The thing to do, once you know you are lost, is to find a good, safe place to build a little fire, build it, fire three shots, light a cigarette, and sit down and wait."

-- Louise Dickinson Rich (1903-1991), author

We don't know everything which we have forgotten, that which has been erased, lost to us, to our conscious minds.  Our minds are a confusion of realities, the smoke and mirrors of a modification intended to try and hold us at bay from becoming all that we can be.  We have memories, genetic memories, which haunt us, pulling at us like the deviation, variation, and windage of abilities just beyond our understanding, just out of reach.  They manifest in our imaginative writings of science fiction which soon become science fact.  Piece by piece the puzzle which is us becomes whole again. Our genetic compass becomes calibrated - again!  

"It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way."

-- Dr. Rollo May (1909-1994), psychologist

We are slowly becoming aware that we are lost.  We need to slow down, find a safe place to meditate, meditate, ignore the two times you think you failed and concentrate on number three, pour a crystal "double old fashion" of bourbon and light a cigar if you have one, then sit back down until you're ready to be all you can be.  Our past is where we're from; our present is where we are; our future is why we're here.  

Did God make a mistake, or lay down a challenge?  You can sit on your ass and be a victim of the modification, or you can view the modification as the challenge it is.  Overcome, improvise, and seize the day!  Do you wanna live forever?  Well, do ya?  

Then you'd better start calibrating your compass.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Editor's Note

(Re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card)

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider another viewpoint. 

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and while engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we learn from the experience, and what we do afterward.

Pastor Tony spent 23 years with United States Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, instructor, and senior manager. He spent 17 years, following his service career, working with an Institutional Review Board helping to protect the rights of human subjects in pharmaceutical research. Ordained 1n 2013 as an "interfaith" minister, he founded the Congregation for Religious Tolerance in response to intolerance shown by Christians toward peaceful Islam. As the weapon for his war on intolerance he chose the pen, to wage his "battle" in the guise of the Congregation's official online blog, The Path, of which he is both author and editor. "The Path" offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination for us all. He currently resides in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he volunteers as Chaplain Program Liaison, at a regional medical center.