My Meandering Mind

I’m finding it difficult this morning to focus on any one thing.  My mind wanders like a brook, passing by numerous banks and rippling over many a stone. This “state of mind” reminds me of Kazantzakis’ writing in “The Odyssey:  A Modern Sequel” continually describing the “mind” of Odysseus as quick-tempered, swaying, unguarded, dazed, befuddled, etc., and then writes, “He shook his mind till his thoughts fell in place once more.” Well,  I’ve “shook my mind” several times so far, but nothing is falling into place this morning. 

One of the myriad thoughts rushing around my mind this morning is the question, “Who is the biggest human I’ve ever met?”  Henry Drummond said Dwight Moody was “the biggest human I ever met.”  Who is the biggest human I’ve ever met?  Who is the biggest human you’ve ever met?  So far,  I haven’t come up with an answer, just the question.  The unanswered question makes me think of Rilke’s oft-quoted words, “…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday…you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”  But…still, in impatience I ask the question, wanting the answer:  “Who is the biggest human I’ve ever met?”  But, then, another question arises, “Is it only one, or have I been fortunate enough to encounter many ‘big’ humans?” 

Another thought rankles in my mind as I think of some “fundamentalist” friends of mine.  I realize suddenly that I started out on my own Christian pilgrimage as one of them.  I believed as they do and I thought as they do.  What changed me?  What influenced my mind and my spirit? Would the same influences and experiences change the thinking and beliefs of my friends?  What were those experiences?  How was my mind liberated?  How did I retain my faith and find an even deeper meaning in my pilgrimage as a Christian because of that liberation?  

Questions—is there no end to them? I live them with great impatience—wanting answers that just won’t come.