Leaving

I’ve sat under a lot of preaching in my lifetime (an interesting phrase, ‘sat under’ but delving in there is for another day).  There is a concept, a theme that is throughout biblical teaching that I have never heard taught.  It is leaving. 

The scriptures start with it…whether you choose to begin in the land of Ur or in Eden, the story is about packing up and moving on.  Abram—as an old man, as well as Adam and Eve were told to get up and go.  It’s not something we relish many times in our lives, if ever.  We tend to be settlers.  There is an angst in being uprooted.  As I write there are millions forced for various reasons to leave home—war, famine, genocide to cover the big ones. Mother Nature gets into the act periodically with floods, hurricanes, tornados and volcanos.  

So besides God repeatedly speaking of it, the globe we live on makes it happen.  Even the very faith groups we follow are nomadic.  We were really meant to be tent people…teepee people, tabernacle folks rather than brick and mortar temple people.  My hunch is that it is meant to remind us of the impermanence of life.  Some see that as scary, dark and depressing.  But there is Light in the darkness.

There is a principle of thermodynamics I heard of years ago.  Entropy says that all matter flows from order to disorder.  In practical terms you could say things naturally tend toward falling apart, breaking and decline.  Another has described the concept as the net entropy of any isolated or closed system will alway increase (or at least remain the same).  Ironically, the Greek root of the word translates “a turning toward transformation” beginning with chaos.  (For an excellent discussion of entropy check out the blog at Farnam Street, fs.blog).

“Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m going to fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re going to fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you—they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart.”

— John Green, Looking for Alaska

Stick with me here.  So you see, entropy ‘encourages’ us to move on, to attempt to restore some sense of order, to look for something new, to innovate.  The quote from Farnam Street speaks of an isolated or closed system.  That is the problems so often in our own lives and in the world at large.  Check out world history and look at the global situation at the present.  Our tendency often is to circle the wagons, to pull back building walls of some sort to protect ourselves. Maybe in the beginning a reasonable move, giving us a chance to think. But if we stay away, isolated behind the walls, it does not end well.  

So even the principles built into the universe are operating all the time ‘encouraging’ us to move on.  As when rafting a river, there are times we need to pull over into an eddy to recoup, but then—to push back out into the flow once more.  

I’m no different in that when circling the wagons or pulling aside into the eddy, at times I just want to stay there.  My deep desire for security, especially when momentarily exhausted by the rivers flow, tempts me to climb the banks out of the river entirely.  Sorry Mike, as in life, it doesn’t work that way.  Keep a bag packed.

Leaving doesn’t only apply to physical places.  It applies to everything. Whatever knowledge I thought I had, to ideas, to faith, to all understanding.  Until I come to realize all understanding will always be incomplete.  Sadly, this realization, although driven home with age, doesn’t get any easier.  We get weary.  Gee Abram, I’m feeling your pain.  

In my reading decades ago, an author I don’t even recall pointed out, not in a heading or in bold print, but buried down in a paragraph that the only thing we ever really do is let go.  That line jumped out at the time.  Life since that read has only served to drive home that truth—again and again.  To the point that I see the last thing we do in this life is let go—letting go of the breath of this life trusting that what we’ve said I believe, is true. Again another impermanence here in this closed system.

So that which gives us hope in the chaos outside and inside of our lives is the effect of a force from outside the isolation, my seemingly closed system.  Creation is much, much more than we ever understood.  There are unlimited universes, realms within our Being, untold unknowns left to be explored, experienced.  

Keep a good pair of hiking shoes handy.  (Asolo is a great brand)  And realize too that it is not a sin to circle the wagons, to restore, to be still.  The Force outside of my little closed system comes most often in the midst of silence.  Entertaining the world’s noise of chaos makes it hard if not impossible to hear.  Just maybe one of our fears is that we will hear the same voice Father Abram or Eve and Adam heard, that it is time to pack. The Way, the spiritual journey was never meant to be permanent.  We are tent, tabernacle people.  

There is a leading principate throughout life, throughout scriptures.  Going is our theme song.  Come on.  Go with others throughout the ages.  We are never alone.

It is our reality, beyond this one.