The Sauntering Pilgrim

It may be the question behind every other meaningful question we ask. One nameless man – a John Doe who could have been any one of us – put it this way when he ran up to Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17). How do I get the kind of life you’ve been talking about?

He was on the right track. Jesus said he came so we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). To those who looked for such a life in the future, he told a story about a great banquet to make the point that if you don’t live that life now, later will be too late: you’ll be locked out of the party, others will have taken your place at the banquet of life, and your opportunity will be forever gone (Luke 14:15-24). When it comes to living the abundant life, Jesus said, it’s now or never.

The man with the question wanted to know about a life to be gained in the future; Jesus spoke of a life to be seized and lived today. The good news Jesus proclaimed from the start was simply this: your waiting is over. The quality of life you’ve been hoping for, praying for, working for, and waiting for is as close as the air you breathe. All you have to do is rid yourself of everything that’s standing in the way of it, and let it in. Believe the good news, change the way you’re living, and live the abundant life God offers (Mark 1:14f).

Images of what’s included in the life God offers are easy to list. The Thursday morning Bible study class listed several of them: health, peace and happiness, family, love, purpose, a healthy environment, a condition in which all of our basic physical, emotional, and social needs are met.

Images of what’s not part of that life are also easy to name: grief, weeping and mourning and sorrow, pain, conflict and war, isolation, disrespect, oppression and stagnation, famine and illness, poverty and hunger, insecurity, all the opposites of everything we expect to find there.

When Jesus says our waiting is over and the life we’ve imagined in the future is at hand, we can almost believe him. The blessings we imagine in that life are salted all through our lives today, and we think from time to time that, just maybe, this is it. But other things season our lives, also. We still mourn our losses; people are still unfed, unclothed, unsheltered; members of the human family are still alienated from one another and seem to love war more than peace.

So we dream of a time when blessings will not only season our lives but will fill them completely, when our pastures will be green and the waters still and our cup will overflow. And we feel certain we’re not there yet, and that makes it difficult to believe the good news that Jesus announced. So we wait, and we keep waiting, and we dream of how good it will be one day when we feast at the banquet of heaven. Meanwhile, life goes on as it always has. But suppose we were to consider things from a different point of view.

Anthony de Mello, the late Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, told the story of a little ocean fish that swam up to a big ocean fish and said, “Excuse me. You’re older and wiser than I. Can you tell me where I can find the thing they call The Ocean? I’ve been looking all over and haven’t found it yet.” The big fish said, “The ocean? Why, that’s what you’re swimming in now.” “Oh, this?” said the little fish, “This is only water. I’m looking for The Ocean,” and he swam off to continue his search.

Jesus began his ministry saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God [the life you’ve been waiting for] has come near” (Mark 1:15). And in the Gospel of Thomas we hear him say, “the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren’t aware of it” (Gosp. Thomas 113). When our focus is on the future and our question is about a life to come, it can be very difficult to hear what Jesus says about the life that’s at hand.

Yes, “It’s a hard-knock life for us,” as Orphan Annie sang. “Don’t it feel like the wind is always howl’n? / Don’t it seem like there’s never any light? / Once a day, don’t you wanna throw the towel in? / It’s easier than puttin’ up a fight.” Maybe there are times when you’ve wanted to throw the towel in, and much of your living is waiting, hoping for a better life to come.

What a difference it could make if, instead of hoping for a better life to come and asking how to attain it someday, we look differently at the life we have, with all its blessings and burdens, and start by giving thanks for it – approach it, as the phrase goes, with an “attitude of gratitude.” Living with gratitude doesn’t mean we ignore painful feelings or dismiss hardships. It means we simply focus every day on what we’re grateful for. Look at every experience, good or bad, and give thanks for it. Ask what it can teach you about the life that’s more and better than anything you can imagine.

“Rejoice always,” St. Paul wrote, “pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). People who give thanks in all circumstances, researchers tell us, are more optimistic, report more social satisfaction, experience less envy and depression, and have fewer physical complaints. We may still have the same problems, but they begin to fall into balance, into a wholeness in which life is experienced as complete, unbroken, perfect. It may even lead us to find the Ocean we’ve been looking for, and we may realize we’ve been swimming in it all along.