“Journey,” preceded by “spiritual,” is a phrase often used in our time to describe the Christian life, and also works in interfaith circles. I suppose that “spiritual journey” effectively describes what is a humbling and stumbling process, as it also quells fear of the evidently burdensome word which could be used instead—“discipleship”—which might sound overcommitting. “Journey” is broadly applicable to creatures who do not know where they are on the path, but that they are on it.
I do not think it is using too broad a brush to say that we who set out in faith sooner or later notice ourselves in a state of incomprehension. But we go forward, perhaps feeling less like the Magi above in this sarcophagus relief from the 4th century and more like their camels, who look earnest enough.
“Even Christians” is 14th century Julian of Norwich’s tender Middle English phrase for those who attempt to follow Christ while God looks on with “pity, and not with blame.” She concluded that “Love was His meaning” from her twenty-some year journey in the light of prayer and Christian teaching. There was nothing new in what she wrote—the love she found was in the underbrush of her age.
The visions Julian experienced as a young woman were her Damascus Road—such as where St. Paul had a revelation of Christ and was struck blind—and Julian’s star, such as the star followed by the Magi who sought the newborn King. Commitment to her path led to the clearing where Julian could finally articulate what she perceived in her book, Revelations of Divine Love.
The keenly shining light or enfolding dark—life’s turning point—is where we find faith, or where we lose faith in an inferior god and long for one greater. At such junctures we have the chance to step into a journey of deeper knowing where we come to perceive ourselves known by God, and thereby become wiser.
T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Journey of the Magi, captures well the anticlimax of the spiritual path that extends beyond life’s turning point. The speaker, a magus, tells the journey from his position of being back home:
We returned to our palaces, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
“Spiritual Journey” includes the disorientation we may feel for the the rest of our lives after an encounter with God that is a birth and also the death of what we had known. “Spiritual journey” describes the whole trip—the stars and the mud, the wildflowers and thorn-bushes, and how we respond to them—each coming away with something to give that is life to the idol-clutching world.
As we look forward to the Feast of the Epiphany on Friday, I look back on a recent leg of my spiritual journey—a 32-week retreat in daily life with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola—a 16th century manual for spiritual directors to lead retreats in imaginative prayer with scripture. My spiritual director, sketchbook, pens, and even my dreams, came along.
I did nothing new in those weeks, but by praying through drawing and images with scripture, I remembered who I am—an adult version of the child who spent hours drawing on paper bags on the floor. It is a great gift of the spiritual journey to know that God who is named “I am,” spoken in the bush on Moses’ path, desires that we, like God, will be our meaning.
I leave you with a watercolor sketch from my prayer notebook—the Magi find the house where Jesus and Mary are and put down their suitcases…..May you be able to lay down your burdens, such as they are and where you are, and find God’s welcome in the New Year. Peace.
