Many systems that urge a spiritual quest also urge a teacher who will play an important, perhaps crucial role in that quest. In the Catholic Church this person is called a spiritual director and persons are trained to take on that role, they may be priests, monks, nuns, or lay men and women. I am not a Christian but i recognize the need for spiritual direction. So far, i have not been able to choose a director.
But when i met Bob W. in 2002(?), and especially when he left me (physically and intellectually about five years later. I realized that i had had a mentor of exceptional spiritual insight, wisdom, compssion and tolerance. We talked more often as "Taoists" and "Buddhists" than we did as "Cnristians."
He was younger than i by a few years and had no formal education beyond high school and military intelligence training (including the Korean language). He spent his working career as a Ohio and Mississippi River barge worker and as a carpernter. In the later capacity he preferred to work for monasteries, building coffins and doing carpentry chores for the nuns. He was married and had three children. one of whom lives in Boise, which may have prompted his move to a "town" just across the State line in Eastern Oregon. He and my brother Neal, who also lived there became friends. I met Bob when he was hospitalized at the VA hospital in Boise. He was already in stage IV Parkinson's Disease ("like the Pope") and about to begin his slide into Alzheimer's dementia.
We probably talked only five or six times in the next five years but each conversation lasted for hours. He introduced me to Meister Eckhart and Neo=Platonic and Gnostic Christianity. In turn i introduduced him to the Sufi poets. He was a true "interspiritual" and he sharpened my growing appreciation for the monotheistic religions and at the same time helped deepen my appreciation for Taoism.
If i had called him my mentor, he would have called me silly and said i didn't need one. But i did and i think he played a necessary part on my spiritual journey (just as some of you have done). As he began to fade away into Alzheimer's, he and his wife returned to his birthplace along the Ohio River where he could be closer to Gethsemane Abbey. a place he loved more than any other. After a few years his body died; i think his spirit had always been free.
Writing prompts: only ones that would be hard for you to answer please! {FULL!} - the eclectic ecstasy of an ecphorizing eccentric
