I will confess to something that I do sometimes: when I read a novel, especially a long one, I will sometimes read through the first 50 pages or so, to get a good sense of who the main characters are. And then I will jump to the last 20 or 30 pages, to see how the story ends.
In my defense, I would say that knowing the end can be a help. When I go back to the early part of the book and read from there, I know to pay attention when some new character is introduced, or when people arrive at someplace that will become important later on. In short, I will better appreciate some of the things the author does.
But I would also have to admit that knowing the end takes away some appreciation as well. In a well-crafted story, the author lays out a narrative path that is meant to have some surprising twists and turns. And often it’s much better to let those surprises actually be surprising, to let them work on me and open my eyes a little bit at a time to what’s going on.
I wonder if a similar thing happens for us in our spiritual journey. We are walking on a long path toward spiritual growth, on the way to becoming the best people that we can be. We are constantly learning to live with a deeper awareness of our place in the world and how to take care of each other. And sometimes we may wish that we could jump to the end of the story, maybe find some shortcut that will make us more fully developed, more truly human, more in tune with the spiritual dimension of life. If we could figure out how to do that, then we might avoid some of the embarrassing or awkward, or painful moments that come along from time to time. We wouldn’t have to go through all the twists and turns that make our spiritual journey so challenging.
On the other hand, those twists and turns often serve a good purpose. We need to experience both triumphs and setbacks, both joys and sorrows, in order to become more mature spiritual people. Think about it: at whatever point in the journey you find yourself now, you can probably look back and point to moments in your past that were difficult or even painful. But now you might recognize them as moments that re-shaped you, moments that changed the course of your journey, moments that helped you become a more mature and deeper person.
So maybe it’s a good thing that life doesn’t give us the option of skipping ahead to the ending. Instead, we are challenged to find our way through life one day at a time. And that means that we don’t have to get too worked up over what’s waiting for us way down the road. Rather, we can put ourselves completely into this day and this moment, in order to learn the lesson that we need at this point. And that will be enough for now.
I hope that gives you some food for spiritual thought.
Larry Lindstrom
Multifaith Campus Chaplain