Greenleaf begins this piece with a quote from Robert Frost’s poem, ‘Directive.’ Greenleaf writes:
The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
Greenleaf continues: If you’ll let a guide direct you who only has at heart your getting lost! This is a big If; who wants that kind of guide? Don’t we ask for a guide who is certain of the destination, and then only after we are certain that it is a destination we want to go to? No, this is not the kind of guide many of us are looking for. We already feel lost. Why then would we want a guide who only has at heart our getting lost?
[For example] Jesus seemed only to have at heart our getting lost; he was mostly concerned with what must be taken away rather than with what would be gained. We find clues to what must be lost in such sayings as: ‘Unless you turn and become like children. . .’ ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom.’ ‘Cleanse the inside of the cup, that the outside also may be clean.’ ‘Go sell all you have. . .’ . . . Seekers seek a guide who only has at heart their getting lost.
One of the many definitions of ‘guide’ seems to fit what Greenleaf offers us to consider: Guide = to offer a person counsel in practical or spiritual matters. In this case, the ‘guide’ might or might not know the destination; he or she might be rooted in doubt rather than in surety; he or she might ‘counsel’ as Jesus did (as many great wisdom figures have counseled for thousands of years).
In order to seek one must ‘let go of. . .’ What one needs to ‘let go of. . .’ will vary from person to person and/or from one context to another. Sometimes the ‘letting go of. . .’ involves an idea, or an attitude, or a belief, or a prejudice or a stereotype or a dogma or a ‘surety.’ Sometimes it involves a ‘cleansing’ of the body, the intellect, the psyche, the heart or the soul. Sometimes it involves an ‘emptying’ – say of rigid ideas or certain emotions (anger, envy, or pride). Sometimes the ‘letting go of. . .’ means letting go of judgments or mistrust or suspicion or cynicism. Often this ‘letting go of. . .’ entails the letting go of ‘stuff’ that has provided us ‘stability’ or ‘direction’ or ‘security’ or ‘predictability’ or ‘control.’
This ‘letting go of. . .’ raises our anxiety. Which is one of the reasons this ‘letting go of. . .’ is so challenging. Our guide can help us embrace our anxiety by walking with us and by believing that we have the courage (think, ‘heart’) to trust by ‘letting go of. . .’ What each of us is called to ‘trust’ will vary, it seems to me, with each of us and with what we are challenged (‘called’) to ‘let go of. . .’ Again, the great wisdom figures of the ages have all counseled: ‘All is good!’ Do I trust them? What do I have to ‘let go of. . .’ in order to trust them?
Searcher-Seeker 