The Constant Companion

I keep thinking about a song I first heard more than 20 years ago called “Eg Ser.” Unfortunately, there’s no publicly available version I can share, but you can purchase the album it came from. And YouTube offers numerous options, just not the one I’m thinking of. Anyway, “Eg Ser” is a Norwegian song, and the English translation I like best is:

I can see that you are tired, but I cannot walk all the steps for you
They are yours to walk, but I can walk them with you
And I will walk them with you

I can see that you’re in pain, but I cannot cry any tears for you
They are yours to cry, but I can cry them with you
And I will cry them with you

The song is what I imagine God, the Divine Beloved, Higher Power, whatever word you want to use, would say to us. Not, “I’ll take away your pain,” but “I will be with you in your pain.” I think most spiritual traditions espouse the idea of the Divine being our constant companion, but something I notice in myself and others is another concept sneaking in through the back door: that God is Santa Claus and/or the universe is a vending machine.

It’s not just the Law of Attraction, New Age manifestation stuff. And it’s not just the Judeo-Christian version of God. It’s in Eastern traditions too. It’s in earth-based practices. It’s in rituals and prayers the world over. There’s a version of spirituality that says, “If you do this ritual, you’ll find a partner/a job/a house.” Or “If you pray such and such a way, your cancer will be cured.”

And there are just enough stories of the rituals and prayers working that it gives people hope it will work for them too. If they also fast under the darkness of the new moon and chant the name of a certain God, they, too, will get married. But then what happens when the ritual or prayer doesn’t work? They either think they did it wrong or they did it right, didn’t get their desired outcome, and feel betrayed by God.

I understand this, believe me, I do. But what I’m coming to, again, is that the Divine Beloved isn’t Santa Claus, the universe isn’t a vending machine, and we can’t control outcomes. We can take action, we can go on Zillow to search for a new home, but we cannot control whether our offer is accepted. That’s reality. And so mature, grounded spirituality is about relationality. It’s about companionship.

My spiritual teacher says that the Divine is our one true friend because we can never be separated. “Your relationship with [Cosmic Consciousness] is like the relationship of a fish with water,” he says. But like with any friendship, we can only be accompanied along the way. The tears are still ours to cry, the steps are still ours to walk. We still have to experience everything – the good, the bad, and the ugly – but we have a constant companion, and that makes a difference.

I dream of a world where we understand God isn’t Santa Claus and the universe isn’t a vending machine. A world where we recognize there is only so much we can do to control the outcomes of our lives. A world where we realize spirituality doesn’t shield us from horrible things happening; instead, it gives us tools to cope. A world where we remember that through everything, we have a constant companion.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.