Greenleaf writes: …two kinds of seekers: those who seek to find and those who seek to seek. The first see the search as a path toward finding something they want. …The others are interested in the search. …The search gives them joy. …These descriptions represent tendencies rather than clear types, tendencies that shape choices, and choice makes the seeker.
After I wrote these words I sat for a time and reflected upon them. As I was holding Greenleaf’s words an image appeared upon my mental-screen. The image was of the great cellist, Pablo Casals. He was a searcher without a destination.
When Casals was 90 years old, the story goes, a young reporter was granted an interview. The interview was to take place at Casals home. The interview was to take place at 1pm. The young reporter showed up at Casals front door at 12:45pm. Casals manservant greeted the young reporter and escorted him to a sitting room. The manservant told the young man that Casals was just about to finish his daily four hours of practice and that he would join the young man in the sitting room a little after 1pm.
The young man began to think about Casals practicing four hours a day. Shortly after 1pm Casals appeared, greeted the young reporter and sat down. The young reporter began: ‘I don’t get it,’ he said, ‘you are Pablo Casals the greatest cellist in the world…why are you practicing four hours a day?’ Casals smiled the smile of the wise and softly responded, ‘I practice four hours a day in order to improve!’ Now, for me, Gentle Reader this is a powerful description of a searcher/seeker.
I first heard this story many years ago and the lesson, for me, was an invitation and a challenge: When am I going to seek to find and when am I going to seek simply for the joy that comes with the search? I search more often for the joy and the challenge and the learning that comes with the search. I have been playing golf for sixty-five years – talk about a ‘search’. I love to read and I am always searching for that word, sentence, idea, concept, etc. that challenges me or that stimulates my thinking or my curiosity.
I have spent my adult years searching for the ‘truths’ that lie within a wide-variety of faith and humanist traditions. I am not a ‘planner.’ I am a seeker and searcher and as a result I have had more life experiences than most folks. I have found that the Quaker idea of ‘Way Opening’ has been a powerful guideline for me. I cannot begin to count the number of ‘Ways Opening’ that I would have missed if I had been a ‘destination-seeker.’ For me, ‘seek and ye shall find’ – not a destination but the ‘Way Opening’ – has been one of my main life-mantras.
How about you, Gentle Reader – Do you seek to find or seek to seek or. . .?
Servant As Leader 