Taming My Wild Horse


One of the hardest and most wonderful things I did as a teenager was to help train my young horse, Callie.  I didn’t have a lot of “horse experience” – but in a situation where you are face-to-face with or riding on top of a half-ton animal with a mind of its own, you learn rather quickly.  In the years since, I have heard the term “wild horse” used as a metaphor for the untrained mind, especially in the context of prayer and meditation.  It is a helpful image – and particularly meaningful for those with some “horse experience.”

 

One of the first things you discover when a horse comes into your life is that there is a big difference between the dream of a horse and the reality of a horse.  Children dream only of the perfect horse – the one that delights in their presence, obeys their every command, and follows them adoringly around the meadow. In reality, one quickly discovers that this animal is an independent being with its own mind and personality, its own likes and dislikes, and its own instinctive appreciation for freedom.  Unless you happen to have a horse that naturally loves people, you face more of an ongoing challenge than a spontaneous friendship.

 

Then there are the challenges of training.  Books could be written about the training process and its analogies to corralling the mind.  I will only mention this:  When training Callie, my teacher and I learned a valuable lesson, and I’ve thought of it many times since in other contexts.  We tried weeks of typical training techniques, but Callie did not respond well; in fact, she seemed more ornery and less disciplined than ever.  Finally, we decided to try something different.  When Callie got stubborn, we simply stopped everything.  We stood still and quiet.  We did not get upset or frustrated.  We waited for the heart rate of horse and rider to return to normal, and then we simply continued our work.  Callie responded to this.  She relaxed.  She was no longer on edge.  She rebelled less and less.  The training continued slowly, but with fewer setbacks and more understanding.

 

Even when Callie was fully trained, we were not always in sync.  She still had her quirks.  She was frightened by harmless things like deer.  She refused to walk through wet mud, even if it was only an inch deep.  And she always moved at a brisk clip on the way home to the barn, but at a snails’ pace as we started out on our trail rides!  Callie always had her own mind – full of things like carrots, and pastures, and baby horses.  The things I asked her to think about – things like following directions or venturing far from the comforts of home – were not necessarily instinctive.

 

I wouldn’t say that Callie and I ever fell in love.  Even when she was fully trained and a bit mellowed out by mothering, she preferred the freedom of the pasture to trail rides with me.  But over the years we developed a familiarity and a working relationship.  I looked after her, and she tolerated me.  We went about our times together with contentment and relative peace.  And there were even moments of unity, when she took me places it seemed no one else had ever been, and in moments of stillness and silence, we enjoyed together the same breezes and views. 

 

The metaphor of the wild horse works.  It is like myself and my mind – and like yourself and yours.  You dream of an easy mind, one that is effortlessly guided along paths and does your bidding every time.  This mind does not exist.  In reality, there is an ongoing push and pull that takes place as you try to control the majestic half-ton beast.  Sometimes, the gentler you are, the better your results.  In standing still, you can move forward.  You will not ever have full mastery, because your mind would rather dream of open pastures and lazy afternoons, and maybe even baby horses.  Even after some training, your mind will retain its own quirks.  But you will get to know them, and you will accept them.  And together your trail rides will take you through dense forests and open fields, across sunsets and into dusks. There will be incredible moments when you will both be still and look upon the same things – in quiet, fully tame, witnessing the beauty that surrounds God’s searching creatures.


Lessons of the Trees #3: Trust

There is a passage in the book of the prophet Jeremiah that once you’ve read or heard it, you never forget.  It has that kind of imagery.  It is an image of a tree that grows near enough to a river that its roots grow and stretch toward the life-giving waters, receiving all the sustenance it needs to weather any drought and bear fruit in any season.  Jeremiah personifies the tree – it “does not fear” and “it is not anxious.” 

 

The tree is a metaphor for those who trust God.  Like the tree, they are well-placed.  They need only “send out their roots” to reap the benefits of the waters, which flow unceasingly from the One who refreshes the soul.  Reaching out for those waters – it stretches us – it is uncomfortable.  We are tentative at first.  But when we begin to feel the cooling effects of the river, we are soothed and encouraged.  Our roots reach ever farther, deeper into the soil where there is always plenty of water in reserve, farther toward the river where waters flow freely.

 

This is the nature of trust.  It is a slow growth which roots us deeply in the one we depend on.  At first we are unsure, but when we discover that our reaching out never leaves us dry or parched, then, when the drought comes and the heat pelts us, we can stand tall and stoic, our roots soaking up the life-saving waters.  We discover that we not only weather hostile conditions – but that in the end we may even flourish. 

 

The Cross of Jesus was one of these well-placed trees.  Here trust played out between a Father and Son, between human and divine, between a dying thing and the Author of all life.  Faced with drought and ruin, roots reached deeply into fertile soil and drank abundantly from the river of God.  And in the fertile conditions of trust, the dead wood of the Cross again sprouted green leaves, and bore the first-fruits of eternal life!


Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
   whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
   sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
   and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
   and it does not cease to bear fruit (Jer. 17:7-8).

When It Hurts, Remember You Are an Eternal, Living House

C.S. Lewis has a special way of explaining things….

 

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

 

Take a Pilgrimage...Into Your Past

In the last blog post, I wrote about the friendship between Catherine Doherty and Dorothy Day.  They prayed for one another and visited on occasion, but the “maintenance” of their friendship took place in the letters they exchanged throughout the years.

Below is an excerpt of a letter from Catherine to Dorothy.  In it Catherine describes a beautiful way of praying.  Catherine was known for bringing Russian Orthodox traditions to the west and “translating” them for Catholics in North America, who she felt were spiritually hungry but lacking in the deep spiritual practices she had experienced growing up in Russia.  In the passage below, Catherine writes about taking “pilgrimages” into her past and visiting the “shrines” she found there:  the graces, gifts, sorrows and joys that she had experienced throughout her life.  In her book Poustinia, Catherine wrote that Russians were serious about pilgrimage – they traipsed all over the huge country – pilgrimage was a way of life.  But even the most seasoned religious traveler discovered that in the end, to be a pilgrim means to journey within.

I invite you to reflect on Catherine’s words and consider praying this way, too.  Which shrines of your past should be revisited – what joys and sorrows?  Can you look back and recognize God’s presence in your life in the people, places and events that shaped you? 

“It has been now over a month that a great desire to write to you has come to my heart.  I have been making, as you know, ‘pilgrimages’ into my distant and not so distant yesterdays, stopping now here, now there, to render thanks to the Lord of Life, for this special grace or that, for this wonderful gift or sorrow and for that infinite moment of joy.  Short as my life is, as any human life is, there are, strange to say, many a shrine in it before which, as is the custom of my people, I can bow low from the waist, touching the earth with my hands, and singing alleluias in my heart for each….  Amongst the memories of my yesterdays is a shrine that I reached into today, at which, in a manner of speaking, I still worship.  Long ago and far away I arose in search of the Lord….  [O]ut of nowhere, you came, and hand in hand, we walked together.”

You can read the full text of Catherine’s letter to Dorothy in an article about the friendship between Catherine and Dorothy, written by Fr. Bob Wild, the postulator for Catherine’s cause for canonization. 

Fr. Wild has also written a book assembling the letters of Catherine and Dorothy entitled “Comrades Stumbling Along:  The Friendship of Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Dorothy Day as Revealed Through Their Letters.”