Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Tag: patterns

She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain

June 20, 2008 / / 3 Comments

She’ll be comin round the mountain when she comes,
She’ll be comin round the mountain when she comes,
She’ll be comin round the mountain,
She’ll be comin round the mountain,
She’ll be comin round the mountain when she comes.

I’ve heard that song over and over and over through my life. Seems like a silly song but there’s something in the repetition and rhythm that makes is stick out in my mind. At different times in my life, the song has brought to mind different images.

This morning it makes me think of the person who caught in a particular trial. In the midst of their frustration they exclaim, “I’ve gone around this mountain several times. I wish I could learn my lesson and move on.” I know that person because I’ve been that person more than once.

Whether in the areas of finances or job or friendships, I’ve often felt like I was circling, re-circling and circling the mountain yet again. Driving up the side of a mountain on a swtichback road has a similar feel. I see the same sights again and again, but each time I see them from a higher altitude.

It might just be that when we feel like we circling round the mountain again and again that we could be repeating a pattern but at a higher altitude each time. So we’re not really in the same place, we’re actually moving higher and higher.

Sometimes I’ve drawn two diagrams on a board to demonstrate the way many Christians perceive the spiritual life. Some might think of it as a gradual incline leading higher and higher and higher to a peak, which is the place of glorification. Depending on their tradition, this promise of glorification may happen before or after death.

Other Christians might think of their life more like a line pointing up breaking through a barrier to reach a plateau where the life of faith is lived in fullness. A key event marks this breakthrough—usually either their initial salvation experience or a secondary experience of the Spirit’s infilling. Their “testimony” normally will consist of discussing the events prior to the moment of breakthrough and the dramatic impact the breakthrough had on their life.

I think both of these pictures are helpful in thinking about different aspects of a spiritual journey but I might also suggest that, “She’ll be comin round the mountain” offers a third and valuable image as well.

The image of a circling a mountain with a gradual incline captures the image of repeated patterns in our life. I would suggest that one aspect of growth in our lives can be characterized by a series of repeated patterns.

One way to explain this understanding is to consider the seasons of the year. Each year we pass through spring, summer, fall and winter. Then the seasons are repeated. And again. And again. And again throughout our lives.

If we don’t move every year, this repeated pattern of seasons in our region will be layered into our memories. Certain smells, sights and experiences of the different seasons will bring back memories of past seasons. Driving with my window down in late spring often takes me instantly back to 1982 and my senior year in high school.

We may associate certain activities with certain seasons. For example, we may connect vacations with summer; football with fall; hot chocolate with winter; and flower gardens with spring. But we don’t have to do the same thing every season.

Some years, I may chose to follow the birds and fly south in the winter. Other years, I may head north to a snowy mountain and ski slopes for the winter. In other words, I experience the repeated pattern of the season, but I am free to improvise my response much like a jazz musician might do with a standard.

In addition to the repeated patterns, we impose a calendar upon our year with repeated celebration or patterns. Many Americans might celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July regardless of their religion.

Add to the big four a series of lesser holidays and we have a repeated holiday in most months of the year. Add to those celebrations the personal celebrations in the lives of our friends and families like birthdays and anniversaries. Then add the weekly worship services, yearly VBS, graduations, weddings and more.

Soon we discover that our life is filled with repeated patterns.

I would suggest that we learn through repeated patterns. Just as our calendar reflects this rhythm, our personal lives reflect seasons of learning. There are times when we may actively learn and other times when we may actively create and other times when we may focus on serving or relationships or prayer or mission’s work.

These seasons of intensity and focus may repeat again and again. But each time, we may remember our previous experiences and lessons from the past to play upon our experience now.

We may also pass through repeated seasons of joy and sorrow, struggle and victory, grief and comfort, conflict and forgiveness and so on. But just like the jazz standard or the repeating seasons, we don’t have to respond to the same rhythms in the same way.

One year during lent, I meditated upon the joy of the Lord. This taught me the pattern of joy in suffering. When I find myself in the midst of a repeated trial, I am free to choose a different way to respond. Jack Taylor once told the story of his son growing through grave financial difficult. In response, the family had a celebration.

This decision to alter their response to something depressing and discouraging could then give them fresh eyes and perspective to the struggle and possibly see new opportunities ahead.

So today, I think I’ll rejoice that, “She’ll be comin round the mountain when she comes.” I may think I’m coming back round the mountain, but I know I’m moving upward to a place of glory. So I can improvise respond in new ways, bring new expectations to this similar season.

And even in the midst of my current circumstances, whether good or bad, I can rejoice and know that my faithful Savior is leading on the path. And in the end, he present me as blameless before the Father.

Patterns, Progress, and Lifespans

June 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I’ve written before about the idea of how each of our lives represents a span of time that we called a Lifetime or Lifespan. In one sense, each of us live within a particular time because we have particular memories and particular visions. We move in time between memory and vision. This particular movement between memory and vision unfolds in our language, our responses, our actions in the world around us.

If I remember being bit by dogs in the past and I expect that encounters with dogs in the future could result in being bit, then I will have specific responses to the dog in front of me right now that will be different from someone with a differnt timespan of memory and vision in relation to dogs.

But our lifetime is not determined in this sense because surprises can happen. One friend told me that she had a fear of dogs her whole life. While visiting family, she was sitting a bed when the family dog slipped and started to fall from the bed. She instantly responded by catching the dog to break the fall. This act changed her response to dogs. In a single action, she changed and became someone else.

We live within one time, but some-times we can step out of time and change, entering a new time (new memory and vision).

With that said, I do think that there are patterns common to all lifetimes (or most lifetimes). James Jordan suggests that we move in patterns between faith, hope and love. This is a pattern that also appears in Scripture as the movement between Priest, King and Prophet. While I will touch of some of his ideas in the posts about this theme, I will not attempt to develop his idea completely, but will explore some aspects. If you want to see his full thoughts, read From Bread to Wine (see the catalog on Biblical Horizons).

Now to consider patterns think of childhood. There are phases of dependence and trust, growth and exploration, and times of expressing self and defining relation. These phases may not be as clear cut as I lay out here but they do happen and there is a bit of repitition at different ages.

The newborn is totally dependent for clothing, food, care and so on. This is a phase of absolute dependence; an initial phase of trust or faith. While a child is dependent through adulthood, there are some points of particular dependence such as when their first born. Another time of intense dependence is when they first do away to school.

They leave home and now must trust a figure outside the home to function as a surrogate parent. Just of their dependence on the parent helped shaped their identity, this dependence on the surrogate (such as Kindergarten teacher) will also impact their identity. Rules of the classroom and rules in grammar, math and so on become foundational for them to make sense of this new world.

Newborns grow into a toddler phase characterized by growth and exploration. They discover their fingers and toes. They move from sitting/rocking to crawling to walking. They grow from making noises to forming initial words. Some early development is taking place in their body and mind. They are learning and a very early form of reasoning is displayed.

This season of growth and exploration will happen again around 9-14. This is when they shift from being a boy to being a young man and from a girl to a young lady. They become aware of differences and constrasts between family, the sexes, the neighbors and us, the kids at school and our family. Using their developing reasoning skills, they are more willing to argue with other kids (and with parents).

Another phase can be seen in the 3-4 year old as they tell mommy again and again how much they love her. They may become clingy to one or both parents. They start asking “why” hundreds of times a day (which prepares them for the rules phase).

When a child moves into teenage years, the “why” question becomes more pronounced. Their asking harder questions and getting ready to do more reasoning, but their also extremely emotional. They may begin flirt with the opposite sex. They move between highs and lows with sudden emotional outburts. They’ve experienced similar passions at a younger age but these were directed to parents. Now their emotions are directed outwards to friends and potential loves (as well as enemies).

While the phases may not be so clear cut, there repeated seasons where children are totally dependent, form identities in relation to authority figures (and eventually in relation to peers), experience dramatic growth and development, ask questions, shift from thinking to feeling, learn new rules, apply old rules in new ways, break rules. And so on.

The child is growing and repeating patterns again and again–developing their lifetime (memory and vision) which will shape their ongoing formation in adult years. At the same time, there are always possiblities along the way for dramatic invasions from outside their memory and vision that will shape their lifetime for both good and bad.

These pattern of rules, relationships, reason, emotions, growth and so on occur over and over throughout our lives. So in one sense, our lifetime is similar to the circular motion on a clock. Repeating hour after hour. At the same time, unexpected events can alter the cycle or challenge us to step outside one cycle and enter a new rhthym. An retired widower may suddenly decide to learn the the blues and travel around the world.

We are free to change within our lifetime. This freedom to step out of one cycle and into another is part of what makes us human. And yet, even as we step between cycles, we will still face internal and external periods focused on identity, relationships, rules, growth, questioning, stories, and so on.

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