Journal of Sacred Work

Vocatus at que non vocatus deus ad erit. (Called or not called, God is present.) – – from a Delphic oracle, quoted by Erasmus and etched on a plaque that psychologist Carl Jung kept above his office door thorughout his career.

   Amid shades of purple, a silhouette appears. Someone is floating. To float through the air. It’s a dream all of us have at one time or another – to be freed of the world’s weight, to drift through clouds on currents of wind, to slip the ropes of earth for a few moments in a balloon.   

   As a child, I thought God lived in the clouds. After all, when our minister mentioned God, he pointed up, not down. He sure didn’t point to the parking lot, which I came to understand as one of the places where people quickly forgot whatever the minister said as they walked to their cars fussing about their troubles and desires.

   It took me a long time to discover that called or not called, God is present. Not only in the shades of purple clouds, but near us in the middle of our darkest nights. Often, I still forget…   

    In ancient Greece human beings were envisioned as tied to the earth by many bonds, each one dragging down the person toward earthly demands. In one image I saw, a slender thread of gold extends from the heavens and attaches itself to a person’s head. We are pulled to earth, the image says, yet we have the hope of God’s golden thread, linking us to heaven. 

   Remember the thread as something linking all caregivers in a long and beautiful tradition of competent and compassionate attention to the needs of others. The thread is there if we will take it up and follow it.

   The thread that Jesus offers to us is woven of gold. He was in touch with that thread and knew that it led straight to God. But what about the heavy bonds of earth? In his human form, Jesus knew that pull as well.

   Tracing the origins of the lovely image of a golden thread, I came across a fascinating bit of mythology and word history. The English word "clue" comes from the old English word "clewe" meaning ball of yarn or thread.

   According to the Glossary of Allusions (Vincent Lazara, PhD) an intriguing Greek myth lives even further back behind the word clue. A sorcerer and architect named Daedalus designed a labyrinth so complex that neither man nor beast, once caught in it, could find their way out. Inside the labyrinth lived a dangerous Mionotaur. Theseus, the herioc king of Athens, sought to enter the labyrinth to slay the beast.

   Through the intercession of Ariadne, who loved Theseus, Daedalus created a magic ball of golden thread. By tying this thread to the lintel at the door to the Labryrinth, Theseus could find his way back out along the thread – but only if he succeeded in killing the beast.

   The sorcerer provided the hero with the means of finding and slaying his dragon. The thread provided the central "clue" leading him both into trouble and out of it. Once he followed the thread into the labyrinth, it was up to the hero to defeat the monster. Only then would he be free to follow the golden thread to freedom.

    God wove a golden thread through Christ and into the world. It is a thread that has passed through the hands of countless previous caregivers and now comes to us. It is an invitation to Love. Many decline the inviation because accepting it means we must first face our dragons and defeat them. Love’s slender thread leads us straight into the challenge of our earthly bonds, the things that pull us toward the troubles and selfish temptations of the earth. We must face into and triumph over these troubles if we seek to experience joy, grace and peace.

   This is not always a titanic struggle. With occasional exceptions, I experience it as a string of small challenges and brief opportunities spread across the day. Opportunities to be seen, faced, run from, or ignored. A friend seeks help, a chance for irritation or anger presents itself, a ray of sunlight sneaks between the office blinds and draws a gold shape on the carpet. Inside all of this, and at all times, God is present if our hearts are open.

   Occasionally, the challenge is very large. The rest of the myth of Daedalus is that he and his son Icarus were cast into the labyrinth by Minos as punishment for the slaying of the minotaur. How would they escape this hell? Daedalus fashioned wings for his son to fly out, cautioning him not to fly too close to the waves that might drag him down and not too close to the sun lest the heat melt the wax of the wings. But so thrilled was Icarus by the joy of flying that he flew too close to the sun. The wings melted and Icarus fell to his death.

   This is the risk before each of us. In the middle of some great triumph or simply across a life of relative success, arrogance may settle into our hearts, pride may pour his poison upon us, drowning us in self-inflicted tragedy.

   For many leaders and some caregivers, power, in various forms, is as intoxicating as flying. It is then that we run the risk of being burned. I have seen it time and again in others and have felt it myself during my time as a hospital and health care system CEO. Doctors, wielding the gifts of their training, and leaders, imbued with a dose of power, run the risk of thinking of themselves as gods. The "God-complex" that afflicts some doctors can afflict anyone who falls victim to the original sin of pride, be they the head of a huge company like Enron or Worldcom or a department supervior in love with her or his power. Even everyday caregivers, emboldened by the strength of their own health and the mask of their uniforms, may experience a feeling of elevation and superiority over ill patients. In the process, each of these individuals may fly an Icarus-like pathway to the sun, burning others as well as themselves. 

   Each of us knows that there are countless ways in which we may find ourselves lost amid the labryrinth of life. These are times when we need to recall the sacred image of the golden thread – God’s invitation to each of us to follow the call of Love. The question is not whether God is present to us, but whether we are present to God. For God is always there – floating in the air, living with us in our suffering, or nudging us awake in the middle of our journey across this earth to warn us not to fly too close to the sun.