.: discipleship of life :.

In anticipation of sharing my story with a Sunday School class this morning, I had one of the greatest feelings in the world. Being the typical worrier that I am prone to be, I glanced up to see a good friend of mine walk into the room. Just seeing him made me take a deep breath, drawing in the sense that things were gonna be okay - that I wasn't alone. How many times have we each had that sense, in reaction to seeing someone enter into a space that had left us feeling pretty isolated and distant only moments prior to their entry? I guess that I didn't realize just how much I needed that, to feel like the impending encounter necessitated the presence of someone who knew my heart.

In fact, he hasn't even been someone who has been a disciple of intellect as much as a disciple of life, as I saw it for the first time this morning. We have seen all of our variety of expressions and reactions. He knows me for a large part of who I am, though I am freshly experiencing once again the reality that we only fully know our own "stories". We have been in the process of teaching each other what it means to really live in ways far too subtle to distinguish - partly in sharing in forms of how not to, as well as offering ongoing invitations to move deeper. I have shared a number of relationships with people who have blessed me with how to think... but the discipleship of life has been shared with far fewer individuals.

It is not even really the kinds of encounters that one prepares for, though many sense that yearning once they develop eyes to see such a desire. I want to know how to think... but in all honesty, I long to know how to live. No one possesses the corner of that act, but in relationships with a select few, we are seeing it fashioned in us in spaces that we could not create in isolation. It's in the moments of inspired randomness that we take the sort of leap that promises to pay off in deeply personal ways. Our eyes are opened more fully and our breath is taken away by a silent sense of satisfaction. And the ones we think to be such are rarely ever truly those mentors and guides. We are led into it at times when we least expect it. Only when they come back into our lives do we vividly perceive them as such.

They are the ones who have taught us how to live. Their movements have mimicked our own, and that harmony confirms the divine answers we have been waiting on. Every exchange that composes your history together whispers those three words that cause life to burst within us. We share in the chase. We remind each other of our need for grace. We weep together for the dead ends that we come across, and carry each other through the confusion that tints any given day of existence. But that knowledge only exposes itself in glimpses and suggestions. Draw it in as deeply as you can, and then it begins to move on.