The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling (46 page)

One of the most difficult aspects of faith is the
suspension of one’s own preconceived ideas
about how to proceed. The willing suspension of preconceived plans and schemes is absolutely required, as Harriet Tubman discovered. These plans—
our
plans—are then gradually replaced by a growing trust in moment-by-moment guidance.

Harriet’s trips were characterized by this very “shroud of darkness,” and also by stunning acts of creativity all along the way. When Harriet and her current band of fugitives finally reached the suspension bridge that led her party across the Niagara into Canada, she would routinely lead the party in songs of thanksgiving, great spirituals, and hymns of praise. She understood that a successful trip was not her doing. She saw clearly that she was “not the Doer.” Thanks should be given!

6

Remember our friend Brian the priest? When last we left him, he was on the floor of his own particular chariot. He was, you will recall, caught in long-standing inner conflict: Should he make a belated choice for what he knew was his true calling as a church musician? Or should he remain in the now-familiar role of rector of his small parish church? It was not a black-or-white choice by any means, as you will recall. He was in many ways well suited to the role of rector. He knew that he was being useful in the role. His family was proud of him. But his deepest aspirations had not been realized. He felt empty, dissatisfied, and deeply afraid he would die without having fully lived. Brian had lived with a quiet sense of self-betrayal for twenty years. As he reached his forty-fifth year, he could begin to see that his life would at some point end. And he wondered more and more frequently: Is there still time for me to be who I really am?

Around the time of his forty-fifth birthday, Brian became seriously depressed. He was paralyzed—like Arjuna—in the face of two courses of
action, both of which now seemed difficult. The more he thought about it, the more impossible the situation seemed. He became more and more paralyzed. He started to drink heavily.

Finally, out of desperation, Brian did something very wise. He requested a leave of absence from his post as rector. His depression was his “second sense” kicking in. Something in him simply refused to go on. This refusal was a wise inner move: When you are enveloped in doubt, it is sometimes best just to stop. When in doubt don’t! Instead of moving forward in a daze, can you allow yourself to stop and experience the pain of the doubt? Can you investigate the doubt itself? This is precisely what Arjuna had to do. The entire dialogue of the Gita happens in a kind of “time-out” for Arjuna, as he explores his doubt. All forward movement is suspended, and an intense inquiry takes place.

“Suspending forward movement” was not that easy for Brian. The bishop had a shortage of good priests upon whom to call, and he was not pleased to let Brian go. The bishop, like Brian’s mother, wrote Brian’s doubts off as a midlife crisis. “Priests have these crises of faith,” said the bishop. “He’ll get through it.”

In spite of the resistance, Brian entered into a time of inquiry. This was itself a pivotal act of faith. Sometimes just stopping can be the act that allows the solution to emerge. Brian spent three months at a Jesuit retreat center. I had given him de Caussade’s
Abandonment to Divine Providence
before he left, and also one of my old copies of the Gita.

I visited with Brian after he had been at the retreat center for a month. We had lunch together in the refectory. He’d been studying de Caussade’s book, and he’d vigorously underlined this passage in it: “
Now it is surely obvious that the only way to receive [guidance] is to put oneself quietly in the hands of God, and that none of our own efforts and mental striving can be of any use at all.”

None of our own efforts and mental striving can be of any use at all
. At all? Brian had come to feel the wearying truth of this.

De Caussade nails this point: “
This work in our souls cannot be accomplished by cleverness, intelligence, or any subtlety of mind, but only by completely abandoning ourselves to the divine action, becoming like metal poured into a mold, or a canvas waiting for the brush, or marble under the sculptor’s hands.”

Brian had to surrender his will. He had to be willing to do what he was called to do. And he had to put
everything
on the table. Nothing held back. This meant that he had to be willing to continue being rector if that was the guidance he received, and he had to be willing to bring everything he had even to that vocation.

Several weeks into his retreat, Brian made another smart move: He entered into a relationship with an old priest/confessor at the center. (Notice once again what a pivotal role mentors play in dharma decisions.) Father Bede had been a monk for forty years, and he was now the chief spiritual director at the retreat. Bede was sanguine about Brian’s situation, but forceful. He gave Brian the same message repeatedly: “For the sake of God, boy, let go of all this obsessive worry and fretting. You are powerless over such a mess.” Bede had faith that Brian would be guided. And Brian, who had much less faith, was able to hitchhike on Bede’s. Slowly, and as a result of pure desperation, Brian began to loosen his grip on the outcome.

Brian and I talked about his process that day at lunch. I was caught up in the writing of this book, and was fascinated by questions of divine guidance. I was curious: How do you know the will of God? And when you do
think
you know it,
how can you be certain that it’s not just your own will in disguise
? During lunch that day, Brian and I put together a list of how the process seems to work.

1. First of all, “ask for guidance.” As it turns out, this is remarkably important, and it’s something most of us almost always forget to do. It seems that there is something about
actually asking
that jump-starts a process. And sometimes asking repeatedly is required. Even begging.

2. Then (something else we usually forget) “listen for the response.” It helps, says Bede, to “actively listen.” To turn over every stone in your search for clues to the response. These responses usually come in subtle ways—through hunches, fleeting images, intuitions. Do you think this is all hooey? That skepticism is OK, said Bede. Even healthy. But listen anyway. Allow yourself to be surprised.

3. Next (another good principle from Bede), “When you get a response, check it out.” Check it out with friends, with mentors. Talk about it. This, says Bede, is a classic principle of guidance: Test the guidance.
Real guidance will stand up to sustained testing. False guidance—which is usually just our own will trying to have its way—will not stand up to ongoing scrutiny.

4. Next comes a principle that I’ve discovered in my own life: “Once you
do
begin to get clarity, wait to act until you have at least a kernel of inner certitude.”
Wait to act
. One thing I’ve learned for sure after a bunch of ham-handed decisions to act is that one almost never regrets slowing things down. We often
do
, however, regret speeding things up. Important decisions very often cannot be hurried. This is wonderfully exemplified by Arjuna, whose chief courage in the pages of the Gita is shown through his willingness to slow down the action and investigate deliberately and relentlessly. Note: Arjuna, the quintessential man of action, spends the entire Gita on his butt.

5. Once there is “a flavor of certitude,” says Bede, then “pray for the courage to take action.” It’s not uncommon for us to get to certitude and then realize that we don’t really
want
to take the action. We’re not willing. Or we don’t have the courage. Or it’s too inconvenient. Here’s an important Bede tip: You can pray for the
willingness
. You can pray for the courage. You can pray for absolutely everything you need along the way.

6. Bede suggests a corollary to #5, and this is a suggestion that both Brian and I really liked: “Let go of the attempt to eliminate risk from these decisions and actions.” The presence of a sense of risk is only an indication that you’re at an important crossroads. Risk cannot be eliminated, and the
attempt
to eliminate it will only lead you back to paralysis. In important dharma decisions, we never get to 100 percent certitude.

7. Next, we agreed: “Move forward methodically.” Begin to take action in support of your choice. Taking action at this point is critical to keeping the process moving. You will continue to be guided as you take action. Be aware that you are led by faith and not by sight, and that the whole process may be shrouded in darkness. Learn to feel your way along.

8. And finally, of course, the very central teaching of the Gita: “Let go of the outcome.” Let go of any clinging to how this all comes out. You cannot measure your actions at this point by the conventional wisdom about success and failure.

After we had sketched out this list, Brian and I got to talking about the Gita. He’d been reading it, along with de Caussade. He wanted to talk about one of Krishna’s speeches in particular that spoke to him. Krishna says: “
By fulfilling the obligations he is born with, a person never comes to grief. No one should abandon duties because he sees defects in them. Every action, every activity is surrounded by smoke.”

Smoke again.

7

By the time the Civil War broke out, Harriet Tubman had become the terror of slave owners all over the South. They were desperate to nail her. The great Boston writer and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson hailed her in his speeches as “a modern-day Joan of Arc,” and set her up as the model of noble action. Harriet herself thought this was all bunk, and took little notice.

After the Civil War began, Harriet’s career took an interesting turn. She was quietly hired by the Union Army to be a war-time spy. She helped to train and guide a whole cadre of scouts and spies who infiltrated the territory held by the Confederacy—mapping it, and observing the movement of Southern troops. Tubman was listed (confoundingly to many at the time) as a “commander” of her men—and she and her spy ring worked directly under the guidance of the Secretary of War.

In the role of Union spy, Tubman continued to free slaves. Indeed, her raids during the war became even more daring than before, supported as they now were by the entire Union Army. There is one practically mythic—but absolutely true—story of a Tubman sneak attack in the middle of the night on a great plantation in South Carolina. During this attack, she spirited away more than 750 slaves onto a Union gunboat, leaving the estate of the great local plantation humiliated and bereft of slaves. This was classic Tubman: She worked stealthily behind the scenes, and then struck when least expected.