The Anatomy of a Naru Hodo Moment

I've just had an insight, a naru hodo moment, that I must try to capture in words here.

This came about through an experience that has happened to me many times in my life, and of course it all happened while I was doing dishes and making food, which squeaks in just ahead of the shower for my naru hodo moment settings. I was grappling in my thoughts with something that was feeling like a difficulty, a blockage, in my life right now. But suddenly a metaphor came to mind of how this blockage could be dislodged. It felt very insistent. I began to imagine how this metaphor could actually come to pass in reality, and how I would take it in, how it would strike me, how I would respond to it. As I went through this mental exercise, the power of that metaphor really penetrated my heart, and I actually felt different.

I realized that it was all "imaginary." I have had this sticking point sometimes with the charism I follow, of Communion and Liberation, that real-life experience is emphasized as the way we encounter Christ. So, was this a real-life experience that happened in my imagination? Or was it just an intellectual or emotional head trip? Or just a fantasy world?

I thought of a woman who was 39 weeks pregnant and grappling with fear over childbirth. I pictured her going through a visualization of labor, and encountering her fears, and seeing herself able to go ahead, anyway. Then I imagined her saying "Oh, what a relief. That's all taken care of!" Of course, not exactly. She had faced her fears, and she no longer felt paralyzed by them. But she would still need to go through childbirth. There is no guarantee that what she visualized would be anything like the actual experience of her child's birth. But in this moment, she was prepared in a way she hadn't been before. Prepared for facing the moment when it came.

Was my mental exercise a real experience? Yes, and no. It opened me up to the possibility of facing this blockage and believing it could be overcome. (And I just wrote about my struggles to do this in my last post!) And more than that -- for me today it was not just the sense that I could over come this, but that I will. It was like a promise, a deposit guaranteeing that which is to come, though not of my orchestration. It was a very real preparation, even though it happened in my head. But it was not the real experience of resolution, just like visualizing labor does not produce a baby. I realize, though, that sometimes simply being able to believe seems so powerful to me that I forgo the actual experience. I remember the Lord impressing on me, maybe 15 years ago these words: "Don't disappoint Me by going half way and then turning back!" I didn't really understand that at the time, but perhaps now I will be able to. I am able to do so very little that is spontaneous unless I am in this place of meditation at my sink or stove, but alas, that isn't where I live my whole life, and it isn't where I interact with others. I am always warmed by what feels like God's mercy for me being just the way I am: introverted, cerebral, intuitive. This little gift today, and the feeling of making sense out of the way I experience the world, extends my ability to delight in all God's works, and to know He is the Master Designer.

And it just makes me happy.