Mystery in Life: Learning from Our Spirituality

By Mark Charles Steffen

In our age of knowledge we can quickly become over-informed while remaining under developedlong on facts but short on understanding; loaded with data but lacking in practical, life-transforming wisdom. This book helps put meat on popular theory-bones by addressing the heart behind the curtain of outward life.
People today seek purpose and meaning, and authentic faith in something larger than themselves that gives hope. Hope leads to healthy human life, which is characterized by joy and wonder. Such healthy life rests on equilibrium between truth and spirit, mind and heart, reason and mystery. But life out of balance is like a wobbly wheel: it seems chaotic and random.
This this book facilitates an awakening to the spiritual aspects of everyday life, and in so doing makes us better able to handle what life throws at us each day. Although we will never fully understand or completely enjoy all the holy mysteries available to us, we can learn to do so more and more, because like life, we are dynamic; we are ever growing, changing and evolving. Readers are led to discover how they can enhance their ability to appreciate and benefit from the mysteries of life. Our world is desperate for hope and joy, which comes from exploring our spirituality. Such hope and joy is available to all!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449703158

Mark Charles Steffen

Mark Steffen has served as chaplain in both hospital and hospice settings, and is currently a member of the pastoral care department of University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia, Missouri. As chaplain, he provides spiritual support to patients, and grief and bereavement care to their families and loved ones. “Our spirituality,” states the author, “holds tremendous assistance for coping with life-altering adversities, and for learning to recognize and appreciate the healing balm of mystery in our lives. We can learn how to tap into that healing font.” Mark holds a Master of Divinity degree from Amridge University, Montgomery, Alabama. He and his wife, Rachel, served twenty years in northern Luzon, Philippines as church planters and Bible translators for a small tribal group, and as consultants to other translators. They have four grown children and six grandchildren, and currently reside at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Book preview

A BEGINNING

Life began when I was born, back in … No, my life began the day I was born … Well, life as I conceive it began then, and that’s as far back as I want go right now. Besides, I’ve been told that eternity has no beginning and no ending, so I had to jump in somewhere!

When I finally mastered the skill of walking, my life began in earnest. As a carefree toddler, I bravely explored vast continents in our living and dining rooms, and I was greatly loved as the last and most special in a short line of three Steffen children. My older sister and brother reluctantly tell me that I was the family favorite. I’d like to think they are right.

A few years later, I entered public school—first grade. I hadn’t been offered any of that preschool stuff. No, I was just plunked into the first grade at the tender age of five. Too young, I know, but there, I was face to face with real live school. Life for me took quite a different course with the sounding of the first bell. There I learned to work with my mind, and discovered that play was not in the curriculum. It was hard work, and I didn’t particularly like it. Actually, I hated it! I believe my performance records will validate this.

I was born again when I discovered in high school that learning could be fun, and that thinking can produce attractive rewards. I astutely observed that some classes seemed meant merely for me to endure, while others were to be enjoyed. The latter genre of classes set me to dreaming—thinking about the future and what I might become. I aspired, I envisioned, I conceived a vision of who I might be … someday.

The best part of my high school days was getting a brief glimpse into the repository of my soul. That opportunity didn’t last long, but I was able to get a fleeting glimpse of who I am within—the real me. Although just a quick peek, I saw inside many mystical pleasures prepared for me, which seemed to be there for the taking—for the enjoying.

But back in high school, I didn’t know how to access those pleasures effectively, much less benefit from them. For the most part, they remained closed to me. Although I was unable at that time in my life to tap deeply into those divinely prepared pleasures, I did realize a few of them during high school, at least to some degree, in the form of the subject matter covered in a few intriguing courses, such as creative writing, English literature, psychology, and Spanish, and by my participation in the drama club, and most of all, in a few good friendships.

Nevertheless, I missed out on much of the contented enjoyment that develops from being connected to the authentic self, the agreeable feeling that stems from innocent trust in the Holy Other, and the fulfillment of the soul found in living for others. I was more about the shell of me than the heart of me. The unique essence of me deep within that held so much wonder and joy was only a Hollywood dream for me: it was an image I portrayed—put on like makeup—but it wasn’t real. And I knew it. The real me, the me with feelings of lust and anger, was hidden, at least in public, for if the real me were to be found out I would surely be ostracized, condemned, quarantined from the healthy members of society. Or so that was my reasoning.

Yes, I missed out on much enjoyment that those high school days potentially held for me. I was unable to fully take pleasure in the present—in the moment—for I was not only denying the real in me, I was also looking too much into the future, imagining who I could be, instead of enjoying who I was, and where I was, and why. I deeply regret that.

Some say that as spiritual beings we have been in existence from eternity past. Spirits, we are told, have no beginning or ending. They are eternal beings. I don’t claim to understand the theology of all that, but I cannot deny that life has a mystical component, a verve, an energy, a metaphysical quality that I can only dance around in reverent glee. Maybe the spiritual side of life is meant only for us to enjoy without understanding it or describing it. Indeed, the more I try to capture the soul of life in words, the more complex and unexplainable it becomes, and the less I seem to understand it. At the end of the day, I just sit back with a reflective smile on my face and marvel … and enjoy.

Come. Let us marvel together.

Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.

–Stendhal

PART ONE: DOLDRUMS

The scorching sun accelerated the cracking of my dried out lips, and the parching of my desiccated throat. I had been traveling for weeks across this virtual valley of dry bones. It began with a single step, downward. I know not when I passed beyond the friendly, lush forest into the wilderness, nor when it turned from wilderness to badlands, and now is the barren desert I trod. I am in a spiritual wasteland. My heart is desolate; my spirit is thirsty and shriveled.

CHAPTER 1

Black Tuesday: The Day My World Stood Still

You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.

–William Shakespeare

It was 1:30 p.m. on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in late October, the day the world stood still, for me.

My boss, Bill, and I were attending a quarterly luncheon with other chaplains in the city. Bill and I knew we needed to get back to our hospital office a little earlier than normal because of a scheduled meeting with the director of our department. But during the luncheon, Bill received a call from her informing him that she wanted to meet with us earlier than originally scheduled. So we said goodbye to our cohorts and headed back across town to meet with the director.

We had expected a group meeting with our three-member staff and the director, but when she came through the door, she wanted to meet with Bill alone first. I briefly played a couple scenarios in my head of what the private meeting might mean, and what the subsequent group meeting might entail. One stream of thought considered the possibility that my job would be somehow impacted by the hospital’s second round of downsizing, but voices quickly drowned out that scene with the echoing assurances: Healthcare is a recession-proof industry, and Your department is safe.

When I was asked to join Bill and the director about twenty minutes later, I knew something grave was up. I went in and sat down mechanically with an appropriate but manufactured smile. The director flashed an appropriate smile back, but Bill sat stiff and somber. Warming sunbeams streamed through the huge glass window in Bill’s office, typically evoking pleasant feelings, but today they seemed an ominous sign. I waited.

The silence was profound until the director began to speak. She spoke with carefully chosen words as she built up to the purpose of the meeting. My head acquired a small, distant buzz while sitting there. The buzz grew in intensity while she spoke, … and I’m afraid that your job has been impacted too. The buzz grew stronger as she continued, This was really a hard decision for us … but you will have until … blah, blah, blah …

My cheeks felt flushed as the buzzing in my head seared deep into my brain, right between my eyes, muting the words spilling from her robot mouth. Occasionally, the buzzing lessened and I caught snippets of what she was saying:

… blah, blah, blah … All of the others got thirty-days’ notice, but we wanted to give you sixty … blah, blah, blah … but you don’t have to come in to work if it will be too difficult for you … blah, blah, blah … meet with Jan … blah, blah, blah … and a two-day seminar to help you find other employment … blah, blah, blah …

I think I still had the remnants of a smile on my face as we parted and I trudged laboriously along making the seemingly endless trek from Bill’s office, past the secretary’s desk, and safely into my office.

What had just happened? My mind struggled to grasp it. So I began doing what I always did at work: I answered a couple e-mails, organized my assigned referrals, and headed out to visit patients.

But now I had a secret, which changed my perspective on life and every immediate situation in which I found myself. I was no longer the stable, always-around-if-you-need-to-talk chaplain the hospital staff had come to know. I was terminal.

As I wandered aimlessly down the hospital corridors, I felt like an outsider—disconnected and riding a wave above all the routine that was going on around me. Everything seemed so trivial and meaningless now, and when people spoke, they seemed to be talking from a distance through a hollow tube: I can’t believe they expect us to still use this soap! It makes my hands chap and itch, Margaret, one of the neurology nurses, grumbled.

They’re working us to death! Sheri, a nurse on the surgery step-down unit, complained. We’re so short staffed. They won’t even call anyone in if someone doesn’t show up, and we’re expected to take up the slack. And now, Debbie says we need to be more responsive to the call lights! What do you do when you have two patients demanding your time at once? I can’t be in two places at the same time!

Amanda was in obvious hurt. Rearranging her body in the hospital bed made her wince in pain. So was your knee injured or had it just worn out? I inquired.

Arthritis, the reddish-blonde-haired lady responded. The doctor said it was just bone-on-bone. It didn’t hurt all that much, but I knew I’d have to have it replaced sooner or later. I’m having it done now so it will be healed up well for our trip to Italy over the holidays. We love the Mediterranean area. Besides, insurance is paying for this surgery.

Doctors Jones and Vernon were chatting in the oncology nurses’ station as I sat down at a computer. While I charted on a patient, I overheard part of their conversation. They were exchanging vacation tips: We used to go to Aspen, but there are so many tourists there. We’ve found a place over at Crested Butte Mountain that we like better. The skiing is as good as, or better than at Aspen, without the people.

At another station, I overheard Dr. Minnelli, who had picked up a USA Today newspaper from the countertop, complain to his nurse assistant, Oh, man! My stock in Cisco just fell three percent!

Further on down the hallway, a nurse came up to thank me for intervening in a touchy situation with a patient the day before. She concluded with, We’re so glad to have you as our chaplain!

Before leaving Mrs. Gartner’s room, her husband asked, How long have you worked here?

I’ve been at this hospital a little over four years, I responded, not sure of his intent by the question.

Well, you do a great work here. I’m very impressed that this hospital has full time chaplains.

I was wounded, distressed, and confused as I walked through the hospital halls in numb disbelief. Yet, in some way, I was experiencing a strange but fresh sense of freedom as well. I no longer concerned myself with the mundane, but neither was I oblivious to the details of life. While oddly detached from the busyness around me, I was also unusually attuned to it, only from an emotional distance.

I was firm and assertive in my dealings with the patients and staff, and yet I was aware of an almost foreign sense of genuine humility in my motives. Walking down the hallway, a phrase from the apostle Paul ran through my mind: … when I am weak, then I am [spiritually] strong.[1]

Unexpectedly, I seemed to see life and the world around me through eyes opened a little wider, and with a broader worldview than before. I was no longer just a worker at the hospital, or a mere statistic in the nation’s workforce. I was different. Now I was a limited edition; I was special—I had a secret.

Somehow, in the midst of my devastating disenfranchisement by my employer, I was able to yieldingly view myself from the perspective of a free agent, and to gladly hold earthly connections more loosely. I seemed to be living by faith in a manner unlike even just a few hours before. And I wasn’t taking anything for granted: not life, not health, not work, and especially not family.

The stupendous fact that we stand in the midst of reality will always be something far more wonderful than anything we do.

–Erich Gutkind

CHAPTER 2

In the Now: Living with Uncertainty

There are intangible realities which float near us, formless and without words; realities which no one has thought out, and which are excluded for lack of interpreters.

–Natalie Clifford Barney

Yesterday was, tomorrow will be, but only today is.

I woke up this morning and didn’t wash my face, shave, or brush my teeth. In the kitchen I made coffee, ate some cereal with skim milk, and sat down at my computer. As I stared at the screen, a feeling of dread entered from my back, between the shoulder blades, and worked its way up and forward, forming a lump in my throat. Where do I begin today? Will my job search be as unproductive as yesterday? And the day before? Should I even be doing this?

I was jobless. I was unemployed. Day after day, I searched websites and made phone calls, each day ending the same: frustratingly fruitless. I received e-mails, phone calls, and regular mail from friends expressing their