I knew, even before I drove home for supper, that I would not be going to the monthly meeting of Presbytery last night.
Yes, attendance is required of ministry personnel. And there were some critical church-wide-restructuring votes to be taken.
But this is an over-full week for me already, and I had a morning prayer service and afternoon funeral service still to finish preparing for today. It wouldn't be the first time I missed Presbytery. And I knew I wouldn't be the only one absent.
My decision was not rash, but reasoned and reasonable. So once home I confidently mentioned to my wife I would not be going to Presbytery after supper. And I fully believed every word I said ... until I heard them come out of my head, through my mouth, and into the real world.
As soon as I heard the words out loud ... spoken outside the confines of my own head and best reasoning ... uttered aloud out in the real world and in the midst of other relationships and commitments ... I knew my mind was changed. Or maybe my heart was more fully informed of the whole picture, more opened to the greater reality maybe of what people of the First Nations call "all my relations."
I went to the meeting. And it felt good. It was a happy choice, not a regretted obligation. And after the meeting I still got the prayer service and funeral prepared, and got to bed in not too bad a time.
I spend a lot of time in my own head, spinning around in my own best reasoning. It's kind of a private version of the Facebook/Instagram/Google/Messenger/Twitter echo chamber that all of us spend so much time in.
Deep and transforming spiritual traditions, however, always emphasize the importance of encounter with an "other" to help us come to really whole thinking, feeling and acting.
People of the First Nations teach and learn the importance of honouring "all my relations" -- of living, thinking, feeling and acting in honest relation with all one's family (generations past, present and future), with all people, with animals and all life on Earth, with Earth itself.
Celtic spirituality teaches the value of an anamchara - a soul friend who rather than simply echoing and supporting everything you feel, do and say, will ask good questions and help you see and step beyond just your self.
The Twelve Steps tradition -- which many see as the most significant spiritual movement of the twentieth century, emphasizes the importance of sharing in community and of what they call "reaching out" to another journeyer in times of stress.
And maybe, going back to Christian roots, maybe this is why Jesus drew up such crazy guest lists for his dinner parties -- because he was determined to draw people out of their self-reinforcing little communities, to finally talk with someone really and obviously "other" than them, so they would hear and see what their thoughts and feelings and actions really sound like and look like outside their own bubble, out in the greater reality of the whole world, all people, and the kingdom of God.
I know that in my own head, in my own best reasoning, and in whatever social-media echo chambers I so easily inhabit, I can get that little wheel going so fast that I cannot help but imagine it's the whole of reality and that of course I am right.
Sometimes all it takes to stop, to get off the wheel, and to enter a greater and more whole reality, is to talk with someone other -- the more other, the better.
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