Just when you thought Christmas was over, we are presented today with these strange out-of-town stragglers called "Magi!"
I like these guys, these driven spiritual seekers from the east,
these men on a mission! On top of it all, they were from present-day Iraq of
all places! They were part of a tribe of priest-teachers to the ancient kings
of Persia. They were men with an eye out for God. Their job was to watch the
heavens for any unusual activity. Unusual activity among the stars was a sign
to them that God was up to something. An unusually bright star, combined with a
feverish search for God, meant they had to check it out. The star they followed
even had a name. It was called “the birth of a prince.” Astronomers today
believe there actually was a dramatic star-event about this time in
history. They left everything that was comfortable and familiar to
them and set out for new lands, for new insights and for new
understanding. Their search led them to Jesus.
These brave souls stand in contrast to that woman in eastern
Kentucky that I saw interviewed on KET a few years back. She had never been
more than two miles from the mountain cabin she was born in. When asked why,
she answered the reporter, “I just don’t believe in goin’ places!” These brave
souls, these strange magi, did believe in going places, in
having new insights, in expanding their understanding. They are my kind of
people.
My friends, these strange spiritual seekers invite us today to go,
not on some exotic vacation, but on our own serious spiritual quest. Personal
and spiritual suicide is the result of saying “no” to opportunities to grow and
to change and to expand our spiritual horizons.
The opportunities to grow, to change and to expand our spiritual
horizons come to us in two ways: by accident and by choice. How they come is
not as important and how we respond to these opportunities.
Sometimes things happen to us. We have no choice,
except in how we respond to them. Maybe we have lost a job. Maybe we have just
been through an unwanted divorce. Maybe we have been diagnosed with cancer. I
have found, and observed in others, that when we deliberately reach out and
embrace the unwanted situation and see it as an opportunity to develop on the inside,
to go on a spiritual quest, it can transform a disaster into an
opportunity. This cannot be done easily or often. It takes great
spiritual fortitude and courage. I think I have been able to do it only four or
five times, but when I could look at a supposed disaster from another angle, I
always came out of that situation in an even better place. The result of saying
“no” to these opportunities is to live in the past in a constant state of
desperation, thinking that if you just don’t like it enough, it will go away.
In the end, people like this just “don’t believe in going places.”
Unconsciously, they choose to stay stuck in “what might have been.”
Sometimes tragedies can trigger spiritual adventures. We can wait
and embrace them as they come to us or we can deliberately set
up situations where we are forced to grow. I call this “inducing
labor.” Maybe we decide to leave an abusive relationship, resign a
job that is killing our spirits, go back to school or enter a treatment
program. It’s scary. You have to leave the security of where you have been and
enter a time of great turmoil and chaos. That’s why so many people
resist change or turn away from it in a panic: the path to a new life is scary
and painful. That’s why some people sign themselves out of treatment programs,
why some young people never leave home, why some abused women return to their
abusers: the fear of the known is not as scary as the fear of the
unknown. As much as they say they want things to be different, as
much as they whine and revile, in the end, they give into their cowardice, they
choose the status quo. In the end, they “don’t really believe in going
places.”
My friends, these Magi, these ancient spiritual seekers have a lot
to teach us about the spiritual life. In a world of people obsessed
with working on their outsides, these men teach us about passionately working
on our insides: pursuing the truth, stretching ourselves and our potential,
being people in charge of their own passions, hungering and thirsting for holiness.
They also teach us that spiritual growth is always a risk, always dangerous,
always requiring great personal courage, but always worth it. As my new
favorite writer puts it, "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's
courage."
My life as a Magi started on a fire escape at St. Meinrad in the
Spring of 1966 when I was in college. I was extremely bashful. I
avoided meeting new people or getting myself into unfamiliar situations.
I was scared of life. I was what George Bernard Shaw called “a feverish
little clod of grievances and ailments, complaining that the world would not
dedicate itself to making me happy.”
That day, I was standing on a fire escape outside my room at St.
Meinrad Seminary with a fellow seminarian, Pat Murphy. In what had to be
one great moment of grace, an impulse gift from God, I suddenly blurted out,
“Pat, I am so sick and tired of being bashful and scared of life that I’m going
to do something about it even if it kills me!”
I was shocked by the words that came out of my own mouth! But from that moment on, I have been standing up to the coward in me. I have been deliberately “slaying dragons” and “confronting demons,” in my head and on my path, ever since! I decided that day not to indulge my resistance to personal and spiritual growth anymore. That day, on that fire escape, I made my first conscious decision to enter the world of intentional personal growth and deliberate living! How appropriate and symbolic that my decision was made on a “fire escape!” I decided that day to quit being a coward and become a "Magi." I decided to deliberately put myself in new and challenging situations so I could grow as a person! I decided to quit being "safe" and, as a result, being "stuck!"
First, I decided not to go back home when school was out that
summer of 1966. I got an apartment here in Louisville and found a job -
something that seminarians did not dare do back then! The next summer, I left
Louisville to paint houses in the Chicago area. The following summer, a nervy
move on my part, I took a job with the United Church of Christ as a camp ground
minister, desk clerk and bar tender in Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. The
summer after ordination, I decided to back-pack in Europe and meet up in France
with hundreds of young adults from all over the world. I made five such trips
over the following years. I applied to McCormick Presbyterian Seminary, another
nervy move on my part, to get a Doctorate in Parish Revitalization, applied for
and received a full scholarship and graduated. Later, I decided to
go back to the seminary as a staff member and, with the help of a major grant from the Lilly Foundation, founded the Institute for
Priests and Presbyterates, taught classes on pastoral ministry and
conducted over 150 priest retreat in 10 countries. Since retirement, I started
working in the Caribbean missions and made 12 trips. When that was stopped because of COVID and a
volcano eruption, I started a major project in my home parish down in Meade County
two years ago. It's about 95% done.
This will be the year when I hope God will introduce me to yet another journey. I am just 16 months away from turning 80! I will
prepare myself by standing up to the temptation to say "no"
"because people in their 80s don't do stuff like that!" As Henry Ford
put it, "Those who believe they can and those who believe
they can't are both right!"
Maybe this is your "Magi" year as well, the year you begin that inner quest that you have been waiting to start! If so, get started! Be brave! Take a
risk! Reinvent yourself! Don't be a coward! Get out there! Be a Magi! As
my new favorite author, Anais Nin, put it,
"It takes courage to push yourself to places you
have never been before....to test your limits...to break through barriers. And
the day came when the risk it took to stay tight inside the bud was more
painful than the risk it took to blossom."
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