It was November of 2006 when I spent a week with my friends Bryan and Jeff at a ranch in Colorado. Horizonquest was the name of the program, Randy was the facilitator of our week together. We spent each morning in the library talking and the afternoons playing. It was at that ranch I shot my first gun and smoked my first cigar since an awful experience with a cigar in high school. We hiked, rode horses and generally had a great time.
Our talks were centered around the material found in John Eldredge's book, "Fathered By God". He describes various phases of our journey as men from Beloved Son to Cowboy to Warrior to Lover to King and finally Sage. With pointed questions Randy asked us to take time and write what our experiences were for each of the phases. Each and every time, with one exception, I came up with nearly empty pages. In many ways it was a tough week but I was with two other men I felt safe with and they, along with Randy, helped me begin to interpret some of the profound gaps in my life.
This past summer my Pastor has gathered a large group of men on Wednesday mornings to go through two books with one being Eldredge's book. While we've not been going through the material as intently as I did six years ago, I'm still at a loss as to those blank pages.
I recently came across this quote from Calvin: "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts; the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and bring forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he 'lives and moves' (Acts 17:28)." Much of my time in the park, at the picnic table each morning is exactly this kind of contemplation. The pages are not as blank as they once were but I do wonder, a sometimes painful wonder, at where this life is headed. Honestly, its been a rough summer. There are seasons in our lives like this, aren't there?
