Nomadic Spirituality
Post a responseIn The Ends of the Earth, journalist Robert Kaplan makes a distinction between refugees and nomads: “Refugees flee a place because they have no choice, but nomads are pioneers on the make. Nomads are the makers of history. Refugees are its victims.”
One chooses to move, the other is forced to move.
Pioneers on the make—the concept embraces several key elements, one of which is movement. Spiritual pioneers are headed somewhere. There’s a restlessness that keeps them scouting for the next frontier. It’s the not the anxiety of the Shirker, whose narcissistic spirituality symbolizes the worst of religion in the ‘burbs. The nomad’s restlessness comes, I think, from an occasional taste of the presence of Christ, of what life can be like in the three-dimensional form of the moment.
Never fully sated, the nomad, then, searches for more. It’s a delight to spot this in those in their seventies and eighties. The pursuit is still on.
One additional thought:
Too often the so-called deeper spiritual life is romantacized and thought of as something cut from a different cloth than that of our ordinary life. This, though, is a form of escapism, as if somehow you can flee dirty diapers, a dead-end career, dying, and all forms of suffering that are endemic to this life.
Thoughts?
September 12th, 2006 at 7:09 am
The positive outcome of being a nomad is discovering the fellow travelers. You can spend years in spiritual suburbia and hardly know your fellow pew-mates, but if you embark on a less-traveled road with a different drummer, you will quickly find soul friends, who may differ from you on topics, but resonate deeply on the big things.
September 12th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Is it the ” occasional taste of the presence of Christ” that accounts for most of the nomadic activity, or the nagging realization that “this church just isn’t meeting ‘my needs’ anymore”?
There are many good reasons to change churches, but I wonder if Christ wouldn’t be better served by followers who’d allow a disappointing church experience to change them.
September 15th, 2006 at 8:42 am
David,
I’m struggling with something in the second chapter of your book and I can’t find a place to ask you the question. Please forgive me for asking it here but it’s bugging me and I need to ask it somewhere.
How does solitude deconstruct my notion that I’m not in control of my life? Is the countercultural choice to listen and wait for God(pg26) the deconstructing mechanism? How does me sitting in silence get me to the place of thinking that I realize and embrace that God is in control of my life?
September 15th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Thanks, D.
The three great Christian traditions – Orthodox, Catholic, and Prostestant – all say in their spirituality/theological writings that for those of faith, God resides within the person. Where and how? Well, those are other, profound questions, but somehow God indwells the person of faith.
At minimum, that God indwells (resides in) in individuals means that a conversation between the God of the Universe and the human being begins. God’s Spirit speaks to our spirit.
The spiritual disciplines, such as silence, create space in our busy lives to nurture that conversation, to begin to recognize the voice of God, to listen for it
So the discipline of silence allows us to wait on God. For what God might say about our crazy life.
If you ask some, they may say, “I’ve never heard God speak to me.” Well, one reason may be they’ve never developed an aptitude for listening for God’s voice. God is always at work in our life, but we need the disciplines to be able to recognize when God is working in and through us.
So silence is a tool of sorts to get us to slow down enough to pursue God inwardly. The spiritual journey is, first of all, a journey inward. Not into our self, so to speak, but through our self to that place where God resides.
If an acquaintance, for example, spent more time in silence, perhaps he might be more reflective about why it’s so important to him to trumpet endlessly to his friends and acquaintances how bright his 10 year old son is.
Silence provides the quiet to listen and recognize the voice of God. It’s not like a faucet; you can’t simply turn it off and on.
The idea is not for us to spend large blocks of time in silence, necessarily, though half day and full day retreats can assist us in key moments. The more practical idea is to find a minute here, two minutes there, five minutes several times a week – to quiet our minds. To slow down. To listen for what God might say to us.
Thanks for the terrific question.
September 21st, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Dave,
When a committed Christian understands the necessity for progressive sanctification and exerts himself to increase his understanding of scripture some strange things begin to happen. The Hebrew writer speaks of going from milk to solid food for babes in Christ. He chastise them for not doing so. When one begins to grow the long standing relationship with his church begins to grow pale and the connections with other members weaken. They have less and less in common as his conversation abandons sports, politics and weather for Biblical issues.
It is possible to “outgrow a church,” IMO and it presents peculiar problems. Church shopping is difficult – especially with children – leaving friends behind and starting new spiritual relationships. Children need stability, but not at the expense of their spiritual development.
That being said, moving on is very important to any believer if he expects to grow in his faith. Home fellowships are on the increase in America for this very reason. The church is not the building or the institution – it is the Body of Christ – and it must be nurtured, stimulated and cared for regularly. As mainline churches undertake environmental programs and introduce entertainment into their worship services the teachings of Christ suffer from a lack of time – people only sit still for one hour. Perhaps that is why so many are empty on a Sunday morning.
Dave Charles
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:53 am
God’s word says we are often the foolish, the rejected, the persecuted. Hopefully for doing right. God also says we can be shipwrecked, but never castaways, pilgrims but never homeless, strangers but never orphans. We can’t try to fit in what society calls religion. Our future home is not here in this world created by power, greed and money. Satan has much influence in it. That’s why we are meant to seek out the truth and fulfillment that only God can bring. We are pioneers who never settle for spiritual complancency. We hunger and thirst after righteousness, the meaning of life and what its really about. Not the illusion of prosperity. But the search for the Pearl of Great Price, the Prize ….OUR SAVIOR….Jesus! I always have to remind myself its a war we are in. Put on the whole armour of God. We’re soldiers.
I am happy to be a Pioneer and a Soldier for him, I never want to fit in this world.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:01 pm
I am a “pioneer on the make”. It is a very different thing than being a consumer on the hunt.
Very different.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am
I am a nomad. Have been since ‘85. I was 30 then. It began as a Perfect Storm. All the pieces of my life lined up all at one time – the good, the bad and the ugly. I was at the bottom – looking up. I removed the lid. And experienced the Perfect Storm in the power and person of The Holy Spirit. Now it’s ‘09. I’m 54. The nest is empty. Priorities have changed. Life is different. I just checked the radar and I’m seeing a 2nd Perfect Storm coming together. Different, yet just as powerful. Once a nomad, always a nomad.