Yesterday I had an internal meltdown. It came out of nowhere. The next thing I knew I was brooding, obsessing, reliving, rehashing, stewing, fuming, angry, frustrated, and thinking about what I could have said. I lived and relived in the past and was blinded to anything that was going on right here, right now. It didn’t last too long and then it subsided (I take heart that such episodes are less frequent and more short-lived).

It was interesting that in the midst of all these regurgitated bad feelings about bygone eras - I was able to “observe myself.” I was able to think, “hmm, where is this coming from? Why am I reliving and fuming about this? It really isn’t that big of deal. Why am I so angry?”

A low simmering anger and frustration that occasionally erupts and taking trips down memory lane are two of my not so pretty sides. It is a side I show to those I love most dearly - but seem to hide fairly competently from others. So yesterday, as I relived one of these petty incidents of the past I realized, I have a long way to go on the road of transformation. Yet I was also strangely encouraged, because although I am not transformed, I am on the right road.

For years (I have called myself a Christian or Christ follower for over 25 years) I thought transformation would result from my belief - correct assumptions and rightly understood certainties grounded in an orthodox theology. I thought it was my mastery of God and His revelation that would somehow enter my synapses and begin to change my behavior. You know for a while this did work - I began to think differently and some of my behaviors changed. But if I am honest transformation along that “right thinking” road slowed not long after I started trudging down it.

The road to transformation is a winding road that certainly includes our minds but it also must engage our emotions, our will, our relationships and our behavior. The road to transformation I have now found and am stumbling down winds through doubts, conversations and a realization that my attempt to “master God” is a climb up an infinite mountain (and one can be awed or despair in the frustration). Ahh, mystery - embrace it for at least on the road I am on - it is ’round every corner!! (Certainty is way over-rated, anyway).

The mysterious road to transformation is a road where we encounter doubts, set-backs, and frustrations, but also it is a road that slowly changes us as we engage in conversations (with soul friends), journey for a time with fellow pilgrims (enjoy community and hitchhike on the notes left behind by others who have been this way), encounter new ways of traveling (discover and try new spiritual practices), study the map (bad metaphor - don’t sue me!), and take new steps in the direction of the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

I am a person in need of transformation - but I am encouraged by the road God has helped me to stumble onto. I don’t have it all figured out - this soul stuff is weird. I trust God, He is good - so sometimes even though I feel like I am in the fog - I figure the cloud of mystery has merely enveloped me for a time! I take courage in the following quotes from Chesterton’s, Orthodoxy:

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.” He elaborates on this observation by saying, “Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite.” Later, he adds, “Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as there is mystery, there is health.”

So, have you found yourself on either of these roads (road of “right thinking” or the road with mystery round every corner), or have you discovered some other roads that have led you into the ever evolving relationship with God?