The Real Journey is Interior

In September 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War and following the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton wrote in a circular letter to a group of friends these thoughts on life’s journey:

“Our real journey in life is interior; it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an even greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary for us to respond to that action.”

I was eight in 1968, barely aware of all that was going on in the world beyond the St. Louis Cardinals’ run for a repeat World Series championship. This week I turn 60. It’s one of those “big birthdays” that causes you to slow down, reflect on the past and consider what’s left of life.

My wife, Sue, threw a heck of a party for me on Friday night with some family and friends. She filled nine poster boards with photos from various periods of my life and set out copies of some of my books and music projects. Friends and colleagues from these different stages of my life got to see (and no doubt laugh) at the old pictures of me — the runt-sized boy in North St. Louis, the skinny high school basketball player, the heavily bearded young adult with a new bride, the new parent trying to figure it all out without an instruction manual, the expat in England with permed hair, the university magazine editor and administrator, the guy with the chemo-induced thinning hair, the traveler, the husband, the father, the grandfather. Me with all my musical friends and bands over the years. Me with friends I rarely, if ever, see anymore, and me with those who have been nearly constant companions for decades.

It reminded me of these words in the song, “Let Time Go Lightly,” written by Steve Chapin, Harry Chapin’s brother and bandmate:

Old friends, they mean much more to me than a new friend,
‘Cause they can see where you are, and they know where you’ve been.
Music, has been my oldest friend, my fiercest foe,
‘Cause it can take me so high, and it can make me so low.

My whole life, it seemed, had been laid out beautifully for me to see. I could see the growth and the changes. The challenges and joys. The “highs” of the music, the friends, the ever-growing family. The “lows” weren’t too much on display because nobody generally takes photos of those times, but they were there anyway, wedged invisibly between the photos — the much-too-early deaths of my parents, brother, brother-in-law and a few friends who should have been at the party had time been kinder to them.

But it’s been a grand ride, all in all.  I wouldn’t change much, other than some more time with those special people. I could wring my hands and think about what I could have accomplished had I tried a little harder. I could list the regrets and mourn the losses. But I’d rather focus on the blessings, like nearly 40 years of marriage to my very best friend and traveling companion or the pride of parenting two remarkable and deeply compassionate people who have chosen their own partners wisely and begun to create families of their own.

There have been creative endeavors that have brought me joy and friends and, I hope, helped others encounter the goodness in the world and a God who still lives and moves among us. That’s what I’ve been trying to write and sing and live about for all these years. Trying. I hope Merton was right when he wrote in his most famous prayer that, “the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.” Hoping.

For, as the wise monk taught us, the real journey is what happens inside of us. More important than our accomplishments, careers and titles, is the way we have grown inside ourselves during the time we have been given. More important is our growing awareness, acknowledgement and, ultimately, surrender and response to the “creative action of love and grace in our hearts,” which is about as good a definition of God as you can find anywhere.

If we needed to know that in the world of 1968, we need it all the more in today’s fractured and fragile world. For if our definition of God (or religion, or faith) centers only on who is right and who is wrong, if it separates us instead of bringing us together, if it builds walls and divides us into categories of worthy and unworthy, we have chosen a definition that is not of God. It is a false idol of a god created in the idle minds of lazy, selfish thinkers or those who think very little about anything at all other than themselves.

A new year is, for all of us, a chance to take stock. It’s an opportunity to see where we have come from, where we stand and for what we stand. It’s also a reminder that it’s never too late to change where we stand or to switch our perspectives. Merton once wrote that, “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

It’s never too late to move your ladder to another wall. Peace to all in 2020.