So you can see the day of fishing (or more accurately a clinic on how to bone fish in which I demonstrated no sight ability let alone casting ability) + Clint’s observation + the opening reading in A Way to Love by DeMello = A Real Ah-ha moment for me!
Several things dawned on me that night in a guest room in Abaco. First, I thought I was pretty aware, quite emotionally intelligent, and rooted in Christ. What I found out was much of my identity was in accomplishment, accolades, applause, affirmation. This realization that night was the combination of what Clint said and what I read in DeMello. Something was happening inside of me that was deep, powerful, singular and life altering. And while I felt it then it is even more true as I look back on the experience and begin the seventh year since it happened.
The second dawning was that for all the information, scholarly and practical that I had amassed, memorized, passed on, written about and spoke from, even to the place of earning degrees and being honored with some, I really hadn’t been deeply formed. My motives weren’t ill, my heart wasn’t nasty or bad, I was just unaware, blind, on autopilot; informed but not deeply transformed. This was not only a tough pill to swallow but it was the derivative conclusion that was just crushing. How much of my ministry had been spent creating the very same information acquisition in others while not leading or facilitating deep transformation? I had a mentor early in my ministry years who often said “you will teach what you know but you will always reproduce who you are.” What had I reproduced?
Third, I realized the the next run of ministry for me would entail a new kind of spiritual life. This was my enlightenment, this was my waking up, this was my click off autopilot.
You might say this was the perfect storm for all this to occur and I would have to agree with you entirely. But what I have come to realize is that all over the world people are becoming aware they are information heavy and transformation light. They are in church arenas that inform but do little to catalyze, process, facilitate or foster deep change. The last 6 years of my life I have spent trying to engage entirely new patterns and practices so the life I am living is different, vastly different I hope, from the life I had previously lived.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Said so well – this is the game I want to stay in. there are so many pulls – good pulls- that have to be fought against. I’m in a short window of time God has given me to look inside, realign my life patterns and activity, stay in His embrace and move out from there.
love to you brother
linda
Ron, thank you for sharing what must have been deeply traumatic for you at the time. I pray that you will be guided as to how to utilize your talents, as well as your vast store of accrued knowledge and insights in the wise service of Christ’s kingdom. Shalom!