Magnetic North and True North. These are two chapters in Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain that focus on his initial spiritual calling, struggles, and ultimate direction. As I was reading these chapters this past summer, trying to finish this book, it was also during a time in my life where things were going particularly rough.
I was struggling with my career and life direction, my calling, just simply trying to recognize God’s purpose for my life. It was affecting my health, mentally and at times, physically. I felt was I was currently doing as a career had no purpose. No meaning. Sure – over the years it made a good living for my family, but the stress of it all began to wear on me. It started to interfere with the type of husband and father I wanted to be. I felt I was not using the gifts God gave me, and I yearned to be in a more positive environment with purpose.
I think this is a dangerous thing for people in today’s society, and an especially dangerous thing for men, and our youth. It’s a different time, a different world from just a couple decades ago, let alone a generation ago. We are busier, more connected. But yet we are more alone than ever before. Career pressures are intense. Societal pressures push us to get more and more. Even in quiet, nice areas like where I live the drugs and suicide are big problems with our youth. It’s all around. For being such a prosperous nation we are very poor in other areas, most namely love.
If people don’t see meaning, if people don’t feel purpose, if people don’t feel loved and respected, they will search for that in other things. Numerous stories abound in my area, in my parish, about kids who seemed who have everything, yet turn to drugs and suicide. They were seeking something more, but got lost. Or men wasting away in jobs, affluent careers, yet with no higher purpose, no higher calling, lost – seeking something with meaning. Or women, yearning to be at home with their kids, but they can’t because they have to afford a certain lifestyle they seek.
Everyone is seeking a better direction in life, one that they think will make them happy. But often we get lost.
For the longest time, I told myself that there are plenty of people in the world that have it much, much worse. Snap out of it, my issues were not that serious. But yet one time when a friend of mine asked for advice about a problem he had, one that he felt was small in the grand scheme of things, but yet still bothered him, I told him that it is all relative. It is a big problem to him, and therefore it was a big problem for God.
We all have our big problems, those that are big for us. The last 5 years were mine and a time where I was struggling with purpose and meaning in what I was doing day in and day out. You have your own that you deal with, that are huge to you.
We are each Job, full of despair and anxiety, thinking that our restless night, our pain is never going to end.
And so after I was reading Merton this summer, and I came across his True North versus Magnetic North, it struck a chord. You see, we have two north poles on Earth. One is the magnetic north pole, defined by Earth’s magnetic field. It is what directs our compass needles.
But magnetic north falls on an island in northern Canada, slightly off from the geographic north pole – True North – by about 500 kilometers. You can correct with your compass by applying local declination settings from topographic maps/charts to your compass. Modern day GPS systems automatically calculate for the difference.
With Merton, his initial spiritual calling and direction was one he was certain was God’s calling, one that he was certain would go according to plan. Merton’s plan. But it didn’t. And so, when things fell through, he realized that his direction was slightly off. He was lost for a while. It wasn’t until he continued on his journey, and learned more, and experienced more, and grew personally and spiritually, that True North finally emerged. He went through much anxiety and some depression and misdirection, focusing on his magnetic north, but ultimately God was leading him to, and revealing True North.
And so, as I was going through a similar situation while reading this book, Merton’s search for True North, or rather God’s revealing of True North to Merton – it stuck with me. I realized I desired the same thing. And the very thing, the very desires I had were what I thought I needed, what I though God’s plan was. It was my magnetic north. In time, God revealed His True North for me, somewhat. I’ve started to follow it. Sure, life throws its challenges, but there is a peace in my mind and soul that I am heading in the right direction – spiritually and literally what I am doing in this world.
Just as Job, through no fault of his own, dealt with horrible tragedy and agony, not understanding why, we all deal with this from time to time.
But the thing is, I feel like perhaps Job, and in fact the Jews of the Old Testament were following magnetic north. They were following what they felt was right, but they didn’t know for sure, and at times, they were lost. They were slightly off course. Only when Christ came was True North revealed.
We are also often slightly off course. And I feel that most of us are headed towards magnetic north in our faith and life in general. We want to do things our way. We want control. We plan it all out. Until things go wrong, then we are lost and off course.
The man in the dead-end, high stress job and the mom who yearns to give her family everything – sacrificing time with family – at all costs. The teen who feels there is no way out and commits suicide. The pressure and anxiety to do more and more and more. Seeking what they feel is the right direction until it all falls apart. And then you’re alone. The very happiness that pulled you in a direction you thought was right for the ones you love, for the lifestyle you love, has become empty and has pulled you away from those you love.
The intentions were right, but the course was off. Stories like this in today’s world pain me. The pressure we put on ourselves to live a certain way, the pressure we put on our kids to do more, be more, be better. I see the pain on people’s faces all around me. At basketball games, parents sitting separately, watching their son, knowing that the family is broken by divorce. You see it in the corporate world, you see it in the faces of people at Mass. We are broken. We are seeking this north that is slightly off.
We need to seek True North. And we can only find True North with a guide. We need to be calibrated.
And our guide is Jesus. The Gospel tells us this today. He came for a purpose – to teach us His Truth, to guide us and heal us from troubles, and ultimately, to lead us to freedom. Freedom from being lost, from being slightly off, from the slavery to our internal compass, that voice inside that we listen to before God’s voice, but one which leads us astray.
And the thing is, our magnetic north is not entirely wrong, it is just distorted. It’s unfinished. It’s like an artist who has yet to finish a painting. True North, is only revealed through Christ. But we have to be seeking it.
Now some of you may be asking, how do we find this True North? How are people who are in pain and truly suffering supposed to find True North amidst their troubles?
The only answer I can give is prayer and hope and being together. This will spawn a faith and trust in God, and each other. Be together with the people you love. And with those people you love, pray together and hope in Christ. I have acquaintances who have gone through some pretty serious events, and they’ve lost faith, or stopped talking to God, stopped going to Mass because they’re angry. And I’ve got other acquaintances who in the midst of any trial, they turn to God even more, allowing it to bring them closer to Him.
I don’t know the stories of other people. I don’t know the circumstances you deal with. But we all let this world pull us in directions that if we are not careful, if we don’t put our core hope and trust in Christ, and live that out every day in our families and in our homes, the world will pull us apart. This is the point of the Domestic Church, the point of the family. We’ve got to be there with and for each other, not pulled apart.
I can tell you, from personal experience and personal witness, that turning to the light and the hope of Christ, rather than shunning Him and turning away, that he truly does help to carry the burden. And He brings people into your life to help. Perseverance and faith is key, as we can learn from Job, and many others, most notable Jesus Christ.
I don’t have an answer above and beyond that. I know many of you look for answers, and the only way to find them is to spend time in silence, communing with God through prayer, every day. Pray together with your family. It won’t be immediate, and it may never be truly apparent, but it’s key. And as Matthew Kelly says, “it’s the whole ballgame”.
God heals the brokenhearted. But it takes prayer. He can heal you. He can heal all of us, sometimes physically, always spiritually. It’s all in His time and in His way. The journey won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile never is, nor should it be.
And He will reveal True North.
JB 7:1-4, 6-7; PS 147; 1 COR 9:16-19, 22-23; MK 1:29-39
