what’s around the other corner?

Traveling with Mary Ellen is a gift. She often tosses out a phrase or two that gets lodged in my soul. One afternoon, she was describing the discipline of spiritual photography which poses the question, “what does your contemplative eye see?” Over the next few days, this question became one that we often asked one another, particularly when overwhelmed by sites and sounds of this holy place.

One such site was the traditional spot where John the Baptist conducted his baptizing ministry. These days, the Jordan River is not very impressive. All we could see was a narrow, muddy stream. It’s hard to imagine that Joshua would have needed to part the river to let the ancient Israelites cross into the Promised Land. So there we stood on the bank, well before 8 am, the only ones looking out on this ancient and historic river and asked:


“What does your contemplative eye see?” 

I find this question shifts the way you perceive what’s before you.  You look around with an openness to detect what God might be saying to the soul. You begin to notice what is being stirred up at a more profound level.

The question begged for a few minutes of silence before responding. Mary Ellen then pointed to the bend in the river, the exact spot where my inner eye had been drawn. Her next question named what I was thinking.  “What do you suppose is around the corner?”

It is no surprise that this new question prompted several conversations over the next few days about call and discernment. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the way God placed each of us in our current calls: I to Sunnyvale Pres and Mary Ellen to Fuller Seminary. We pondered how the life of faith that often calls us to trust what is unseen and unknown around the corner. Last winter, both of us stepped into positions that were much bigger than our previous jobs but ones that have required us to trust more in the One who called us there than to have absolute assurances about what is next. 

As we return from the Holy Land, I want to keep open to what’s around the corner. At this age and stage of life, risk is not something I find easy to embrace.  But the alternative would be to be stuck seeing only muddy water and not open to the adventure that God has ahead.