Yesterday I was visiting my parents for the celebration of my father’s somethingty-something birthday, and decided to take a sit in my Thoughtful Spot.
My Thoughtful Spot is my favorite place on my parent’s property. In the center of the house lawn, facing a white-washed barn like structure, is an old porch swing that my mother constructed quite a few years ago. She informed me that she needed to get in there and replace it, but part of me wanted to respond with a terse, “Don’t you dare”. Yes, I understand that it is green in a few places on the timbers, parts of the timbers are looking soft with some chunks having crumbled off, and it probably is a hazard. My mother advised me to be sure to sit as close to the precise middle as possible for safety reasons. But there’s a romance to old things no matter how decrepit.
I needed my thoughtful spot because I’ve been thinking about “Telos” a lot lately. Telos is an ultimate goal, a defining objective of our life, a driving aim that everything else in our life needs to serve in order to achieve it.
My son has begun non-homeschool at a private school that teaches in the classical style and brought home a “catechism” that talked about Telos. It made me reflect on my life in a way that revealed part of the source of my discontent over the decades. I’ve felt lost, as many of my generation have, because either A) we have not had or been encouraged to discover our Telos or B) we have bought into empty Telos such as money, sex, etc.
As with so many things, adults throughout my life basically had the idea that “Meh…if it’s important to you, you’ll figure it out.” I ended up being a wave upon a storm tossed ocean with no heading or direction, sent out because, “we sail, that’s what we do. You pick where, or don’t. It’s fine. Whatever you think is good and important.” Which is not a good thing to leave up to a young man with his head full of thoughts that aren’t his own and a heart full of desires that are not worthy.
The funny thing is that, as I came to something of a conclusion, my Telos is something I’ve always known. I think that’s probably true of many if not all of us. My Telos scares the crap out of me, and my mind started drifting to all the times I’ve launched toward my Telos and failed, or wussed out, or got too scared and missed the mark. The perspective had always been, “Well, if that was supposed to be then it would magically have worked out and then I’d know.”
I look at the ground a lot when I think. Often my intense, brow-furrowed gaze lands on the carpet under my desk, or the creaky wood floor of my favorite coffee shop. This means that it is static, no distractions.
Under that swing, however, was familiar stones my mother had set there in concrete years ago and have been polished by my and my siblings feet on many a lazy summer day, and something else. A world of activity lay at my feet. There were daddy-long-legs, black ants, fuzzy caterpillars, and all manner of creatures that seemed to appear out of nowhere now that I was sitting still.
I chuckled at the amount of activity going on that we stumble and rush past every day, and then noticed one particular little fellow; a caterpillar of green segments. In between the green segments he was colored orange and he was up on his hindmost legs, stretching as hard as he could to reach something.
On either side of the swing are some flower beds that are framed in typical garden timbers. Through the passage of time, in some areas, the rain has eroded away some of the soil creating something of a small gap between the soil and the timber. Small to us, but a very large gap to such a small caterpillar.
As I watched him struggle I couldn’t help but root for the little guy. The caterpillar was trying to grab onto the landscaping timber with his mandibles and hoist himself up to crawl up onto it. I could see him square up to it as if judging the distance, rear back and lunge. He’d get ahold of it and his tiny front legs would start working furiously, seem to gain purchase and then off he’d fall. He’d move down or up the timber and try again.
Something inside me whispered, “Watch. Pay attention”.
The next few minutes were full of highs and lows; moments where he would nearly make it and fall over and others where he would fall over at just trying to walk let alone lean back to reach his goal.
I noticed how tenacious he was, and how my desire to cheer for him went from enthusiasm, to mild curiosity, and then something like annoyance. At one point I almost went over to pick him up and do it for him, but something stopped me. I remembered that in the case of chicks and butterflies, if you deprive them of their struggle you actually handicap them. Your act of compassion can create a life long struggle that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
The whisper I’d heard before became a nudge…that somehow this caterpillar’s struggles were an analogy to my own.
The Christian life is a struggle. It is meant to be a struggle, as much as we don’t want to hear or believe that. When we begin we are full of enthusiasm; full of verses about being more than conquerors, born and bred overcomers, and every sin and darkness has been defeated by Jesus. As we live the life in the Spirit we find that we still struggle, that things aren’t easy, and in fact they take on a new shade of difficulty. Our Christianity often devolves into something like a mild curiosity. Certainly we believe it is important. Yes, we live our life by it, but now other things creep in; things that distract from the difficulty, that give us a respite from the struggle. These innocent little distractions. We then eventually become frustrated because we keep trying, we keep reaching out, trying to grab ahold, trying to change our lives, trying to be everything we know it is possible for us to be.
That journey is full of attempt and missing. It is so easy to become discouraged as year after year this sin, this situation, this good habit we can’t seem to incorporate, even though we know it is a command of Jesus to do, still is out of our grasp. It’s almost even worse when we grab ahold, thinking, “Finally!”, and then we slip and fall.
I was there watching this caterpillar try again and again and fail and falter, nearly miss and nearly succeed, for probably ten minutes. I couldn’t help but see the LORD’s perspective of me as if I was that caterpillar. I realized I was disinterested after ten minutes. The LORD however is never disinterested, never wonders if we are going to make, always encourages and cheers us on. He is always invested in pushing us to His goal for us…to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.
It may have been a fabulous coincidence…but I believe it was the Holy Spirit being playful…but I watched the caterpillar succeed. It managed its success through the help of a single tiny plant. There was a three leaf clover, just one, that it got ahold of and boosted itself up onto the landscaping timber and climbed over, on to the other side. The three leaf clover, of course, being Saint Patrick’s analogy of the Trinity. Three leaves. One plant.
This is the encouragement. You are called to live a life less ordinary. The world offers you comfort and ease, but you were made for greatness. God does not care how many times you try and fail, struggle and try again to nearly get there and then falter and try again. We are all doing just that. And, no one will be surprised by this who has lived the Christian life long enough, when you overcome one issue there is another following close behind for you to overcome. We were made not for this life as our end goal but the life to come. We train, we race, we struggle, we grow here. We only grow physically stronger by lifting something too heavy for us, and that is true spiritually.
The angel called Gideon a mighty man of valor when he was hiding in a wine vat scared poopless. God doesn’t see you as you are right now, but as what you will become.
Embrace the struggle. Don’t ever quit. Lean on the Trinity.
Pax,
W
Finding Narnia 
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