Spiritual Lessons from a Teething Child

Me and my daughter. 

Teething is a painful process and very uncomfortable.  My daughter's ear piercing screams make my heart wrench as I try to soothe her as her new bottom teeth are coming in.  While spiritual growth is not exactly like getting your first baby tooth, it can also be a very painful and down right uncomfortable process.

In my 20s, I had a mistaken belief that a spiritual awakening or some sort of "aha" moment, which Zen describes of kensho would somehow make my life more easy.  I confused spiritual growth as somehow comfort and ease.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes spiritual experiences are very pleasant in that they provide a sense of clarity.

In my early 30s, I was given a moment of clarity, where I saw for the first time that the way I was living my life was not working.  I could no longer blame everyone else for my misery, and maybe just maybe I was willing to try another way before I tried killing myself yet again.  It seems funny now to me looking back at how delusional I was thinking I was somehow in control, and I could figure my life out.  I had tried many spiritual paths at this point from Anarchist philosophy, Stoicism, Buddhism, Taoism, and different strains of Christianity like Methodism and Catholicism.

I moved to a L'Arche community in DC also hoping that somehow coming to a spiritual community would fix me.  The reality was I did not want to truly let control, and my mind started seeing all the ways in which my L'Arche community was the problem and not really helping me.  I once again fell into a common pattern of mine, blaming others for the dissatisfaction, restlessness, and internal discomfort I felt.  I was spiritually sick and I did not even know it, until I finally came to the jumping off place.  At this point, I was praying everyday for a God of my understanding to kill me in my sleep.  Why do the dirty work if someone else will do it for you?  It upset me each morning that God was not merciful and took me in my sleep, but I had to face life which felt like a chore...a living hell.

I am like a baby in that I thought the world revolved around me.  A 31 year old man behaving like a helpless baby leaves one angry entitled human being.  Luck for me, I was given a gift of desperation...hitting a spiritual bottom.  In a moment of clarity I became aware that the common denominator in all my misery no matter where I went was me.  I had to change or get busy dying, because I did not want to continue living this way.

No one, not even a loving community could make me surrender, nor could they then do the work of inner change.  I opened myself to a God that I did not really believe, because this God of my childhood, God I studied in seminary was a God of my own making...ultimately I still ran the show.  My way did not work and luckily enough I was able to reach out for help and be desperate enough not to control who or what that form of help came.

I experienced a state of admitting I was powerless and being open to another way, which meant admitting my way, my thinking, and the way I was living was not thinking.  I was my worst enemy.  I am not sure if babies think these thoughts as they experience pain and suffering, maybe they just cry because they hurt.  My daughter goes from extreme distress to belly laughs, and I truly envy how she is so much in the moment.  She is powerless over the pain and discomfort of teething, but it is my hope that she trusts that she has loving parents that are looking out for her and walking with her through the process.  I sometimes forget that I have a loving Power in my life that walks with me through the pains and joys of life, and sometimes that Power reaches out to me through friends and sometimes strangers.  I truly believe and have experienced how we can be channels of God's peace, especially in moments we are honest and vulnerable.

Teething like spiritual growth can be very tiring, and sometimes we need a nice long nap cuddled up to someone we love.