What the Hell is Water?
FIRST—AN UPDATE:
I did make the decision to postpone my trip to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain and meet with the leaders of the British Pilgrimage Trust in Britain. My calf muscle is still healing. I am actually relieved by the decision. I had been pushing (surprise, surprise, right!) too hard and the extra four months of rest, recuperation and recovery feels like a real gift.
I also am learning from the experience. While I do believe that I should be able to leave about September 1, I am not buying my tickets until it is clear that my recovery is on track. This is the shift from my achievement orientation to an acceptance orientation that I wrote about in my last blog, “Warning—Detour Ahead!” I am learning adjust my goals to the reality of life rather than trying to force life to fit into my goal.s. A lesson at age 63!
“WHAT THE HELL IS WATER?”
I have always been out on the creative front edge of expectations. Even in college, I remember being told for my honors research to stick to good research, but avoid drawing my own conclusions. But I could not help myself. In seminary I remember being told, “Brian, not only are you understanding theology but you are thinking theologically as well.”
This all seemed normal to me, but I am only now beginning to see that I have never quite fit in with the status quo. Recent conservations are reminding me of this again and I think it is worth sharing with you. Not to reinforce my identity, but to help you see how much our culture is blind to our own limited worldview.
There is a great Chinese proverb that says that a fish can’t see the water unless it jumps out of its fish bowl. Author David Foster Wallace relays the same wisdom with the little story of two little fish who are swimming when an older fish appears and says, “Morning kids, how’s the water?” The two fish look at each other and one asks, “What the hell is water?”
This past month I have had a number of experiences that tell me that we can’t see the actual water we are swimming in.
As many of you know I am making a transition out of professional ministry into creative work that better reflects my passions, gifts and skills. During this past month, I have had a number of people wish me well as I step out into something new. But the form that many of the good wishes have come exposes how deeply we are entrenched in a status quo that we are blinded to.
All of these well-wishing people have had the best of intentions, but the majority of them framed their good wishes and curiosity in terms that reflect they are only able to see things from within the frameworks of our current status quo.
Here is a sample of the comments I have heard:
“Brian, do you know what kind of a position you will be looking for next?”
“Brian, it will be really interesting to see what job you are going to land in.”
“Brian, if you need a reference, count me in.”
Again, I deeply appreciate the support. But look at the assumptions underlying all of these comments. Each of them assume that I will be shifting from one role within our current societal and economic structure into another role. All of the comments see the world limited to what has already been created. It’s as if they are saying, “We want to make sure that you are jumping from one safe and secure place to another safe and secure place.” Thank you for caring about me, but you don’t see the same world I see.
And this is what they and most of us don’t see. There is no safety and security in what is coming next. People who see themselves as employees shift from one safe place to another. But pilgrims and pioneers, by their very definition, leave the safety of home to venture into the unknown. And they do it on behalf of their community.
I have a new friend who relayed to me that, as a child, she grieved the fact that America’s pioneering days were over. Her childhood perception was that our ancestors had gone as far West as they could and there was no more land to discover or explore (she fully acknowledges the colonizing lens she held as a child. That deserves another post!). But, as an adult she has discovered that her best life is in pioneering into new forms of community connection and spiritual expression. Pioneering, by its nature, gives up security in favor of calling.
I write this not to shame those who can’t see beyond the status quo. I write this not to solicit or beg for affirmation and understanding. I write this because the status quo structure of much of American life is disintegrating at a rather rapid rate. Sticking with our proverbial metaphor, the water we are swimming in is getting more and more stagnant every year. Eventually there will not be enough oxygen for any of us.
We definitely need competent, hard-working employees who have integrity and live up to professional expectations. But in this time chaotic transition and dying worlds, we also need a few pioneers and pilgrims who are willing to look for the worlds—psychological, spiritual, and economic—that are just over the horizon.
Thank you all again for caring about me. Thank you for wanting to make sure I still have a place in the pond. But this pond can’t sustain me. It can’t sustain any of us for much longer.
I need to head upstream in search of fresher water.
“Water? What the hell is water?”
Brian Heron
Religious Innovator and Spiritual Pilgrim