A Journey to Eden: Re-discovering the Path

Laying the original path        The results of our efforts
    Autumn 2004                            Summer 2005  ,,,,,,,,

My previous posting inspired me.  I’d found (and posted) pictures we’d taken back in 2004 when we first laid the flagstone for a meandering path in our front garden along with photos from the following summer when the garden had matured around the stone pathway. 

The path overgrown
Early summer 2011

I had forgotten how pretty it was, particularly as it had since become overgrown with crabgrass, ornamental strawberries, clover, dandelions, and the occasional thorny blackberry vine. Season after season, year after year, we neglected the path to the point where we became indifferent to the overgrowth. I just presumed the path was lost to the weeds and doomed forever by the so-called thug plants.  Why I thought that, I can’t say for certain, but such thinking was consistent with my state of mind: both the path and the energy & will to recover it were nowhere to be found.

What an apt allegory or metaphor for my spiritual life. Like my garden path, my spiritual journey has been a meandering one. It was laid on a foundation of Catholicism, but informed by wanderings on many diverse paths: born-again evangelical Christianity; Islam, New-Age Spiritualism; Wicca, and esoteric Judaism (Kabbalah), to name a few. I first became aware of having a deep spirit life around age 13 and from that time, my spiritual beliefs have been a wonderful source of energy, direction, and nurturing for me. There have been times over the years when both my faith and practices were strong and consistent. There have been other times when I was indifferent to my spiritual path, other concerns grew large and distracting, competing for my energy and attention to the point where they covered-up the path (or at a minimum, made it that much harder to tread on it).

Teaching a class on medical ethics

Such was the case up to recently. I've spent the past 14 years in an elite medical education environment and I can say without question that life in academia is demanding. As a romantic, it can be seen as the idyllic life of the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. And I have loved that aspect of it. Where else can you just simply think the largest thoughts you can imagine, discuss them with some of the smartest people, and even get paid for it? 


But in the trenches – the everydayness of the job – there is this relentless “up or out” imperative, this “publish or perish” mantra that shatters the romantic image, bringing out the worst in my colleagues and myself. The pressures are intense, particularly in elite institutions such as mine. In such environments you are measured "on the curve" and the curve is set by the successes of your peers: the Nobel laureates, the MacArthur geniuses, the Pioneer Awardees... It is a situation where being good enough somehow is never good enough. The expectations can sometimes feel inhuman. I was once told that if I am getting enough sleep at night, I am probably not working hard enough. Such a life can zap your energy (and will) and have you daily walking past the neglected, forgotten garden of your life and not even notice the garden or the path you are on.

There is an African proverb that says: To stumble is not to fall but rather to move forward quickly.

Last year was a hard year, a year of stumbling. But stumbling such that it led (thank God) to falling forward. It was at one of my lowest points that I realized that I had made a choice to live the life I was living – one full of stress with dubious rewards – and that I could choose something else. I declared to myself that in one year, 365 days, I would be in a new place, engaged in work where my God-given gifts and the skills and talents I've developed over the years would be perfectly matched. Even if my work circumstances wouldn't change, I would be (changed).


The story of Genesis – the Creation story – was the perfect allegory for the task ahead of me of re-creating myself. I named my process "My Journey to Eden," which would come to have multiple meanings (that I will share over time). But for now I will fast forward to the present. Next month I shall begin a year of training in Clinical Pastoral Education. I will be in a new place, engaged in God's work of becoming a spiritual companion for others.

The Task at Hand: Recovering the Neglected Pathway

This journey to Eden has returned me to gardening. This week, I undertook the task to recover the lost stone path. And in the process, I am affirming my own recovery.

Re-discovering My Path