Weekend With a Friend

PREFACE

Reflection on a weekend spent with an old friend that I hadn't seen for several years and the exercise in "creative dialogue" we were able to engage in with each other with reflections on a narrative created by Thomas Merton, one of the great mystics of our time.

After many months of minimal contact with a younger man I have known for over twenty years, we decided it was time to get together. We finally could synchronize a weekend without distractions, so I scheduled a flight to Nevada.

In the months prior, we both had been through some events that rocked our world. Relationship breakdowns, to be exact. Or otherwise, people in our lives couldn't make the transition to function. Their family dysfunction couldn't be shaken off after years of seeking help from the pain. (It was difficult enough for us to break through the bondage of our family dysfunction) He and I were at a place to engage in creative dialogue with a splash of vulnerability and experience the dividends of fellowship. 

As a memory maker for the weekend, he planned a trip up to the Utah mountains to make new memories of our time together. So off we went to an area east of Cedar City, Utah. This area is close to a national park called Zion. If you have ever been there, you know the topography of this area. It is beautiful, especially this time of year, with the fall colors of the aspens and deciduous trees turning colors before they give up the fight.

Since I was a teenager, I have known that a level of fellowship with men could be a reality if we learn to trust within a boundary of grace. As time continued to run ahead of our desire to keep pace, we continuously found ourselves invading others with a vulnerability not usually experienced in an average lifetime. So we learned to engage in trust that we were safe in the dialogue. I have coined "Creative Dialogue," which speaks to the ensuing conversations. This is what God is offering us through the Holy Spirit. 

So back to the memories made and experienced. 

He, a younger father with three children, and I, a late 60's man with grandchildren, pursued what time we were granted to dialogue on with the fantastic aspen groves blowing up the landscape with yellows and gold. 

Our conversations rambled on for three days about the failures we had experienced. Or should I say the manifestations of our ontology that have played out in our lives. And what we had to share was not, particularly, a pretty sight.

MERTON

The theme we soon discovered is this. Thomas Merton speaks to man's ontology as being that of not a moral choice we make every day from our sinful flesh but that our ontology is, in fact, "Sin." 

Ok, that's a big statement to make about the human species, and most won't know what I just said! Ontology is described as that which is our identity. Who are we, humans? That is our ontology. In Merton's own words he states:

"To say I was born in sin is to say I came into the world with a false self. I was born in a mask. I came into existence under a sign of contradiction, being someone I was never intended to be and, therefore, a denial of what I am supposed to be. And thus I came into existence and nonexistence simultaneously because from the very start I was something that I was not."1

"Merton equates sin with the identity-giving structures of the false self. For Merton, the matters of whom we are always preceded what we do. Thus sin is not essentially an action but rather an identity. Sin is a fundamental stance of wanting to be what we are not. Sin is an orientation to falsity, a basic lie concerning our deepest reality."1

We could make the connection that Merton was explaining many years ago. We are fallen creatures created by the creator of the universe and are living in our lost selves unless we reach for the promise of salvation offered by our messiah Jesus Christ. And in the time of our personal history, we have lived out this ontology, and we grieved and cried for a better future of living in grace and forgiveness and, ultimately, the hero's journey and victory. A prayer to our Father that we are saved from the bondage of our ontology and become men of faith, love, hope, and joy, not to forget prayers that we become men that are wise as serpents, with God's intervention.

CONCLUSION

We met for a weekend of catching up and encouraging each other. We made time for this event, knowing it was a needed meeting. We had learned that where two or more come together, He will be present. We go the extra mile to invite Him to our forum. We practice "Creative Dialogue" for fellowship with ears on alert for His voice, knowing He will speak to us. The hand of providence will orchestrate events and moments for our benefit, ask and trust Him. 

And he did. 

It was a great time together.

Blessings!

1. James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere (Ave Maria Press1978), p. 5.