To journey without being changed is to be a nomad.
To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.
Mark Nepo
from Christine Valters Paintner, The Love Of Thousands, (65)
Why begin a journey, especially when one has no idea of where it might lead? Can one make a journey a pilgrimage, even if there is no end goal or site? I am entering this Advent knowing, in one sense, that the goal is the celebration of the Christ Child’s entry into the world, the moment where all matter in the history of space and time was transfigured. I travel toward a re-recognition of the Incarnation: of the radical, earth-shattering knowledge of God-With-Us. True for the first time, true for the fifty-something time in my own life.
Why set out at all then? Because I desire God’s holy surprise to erupt in my life. Making an Advent pilgrimage is a way to remind myself of this intention: that the spiritual life is precisely about a commitment to ongoing transformation, made by voyaging into the unknown heart of God (the Benedictine vow of conversatio morum). Brother David Steindl-Rast reminds me:
Desire has garnered undeserved bad press among spiritual writers, as if all desires were impure. According to its Latin origin, the very word means “relating to a star” or “following a star” – your star. You purify your desires not by suppressing them but by finding your highest star and hitching your heart to it. (You are Here, (107))
So this winter I am also intentionally embracing the unknown increasing ‘dark’ (which is always a physical and somatic factor in Winter for me). I ask myself Gerard Manley-Hopkins’ question: ‘Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul’s star?’
I wonder what desire propelled those first-century CE Wise-Ones out of their homes and observatories to follow a new star? A desire for knowledge certainly; but also a desire for what cannot be fully known at the start of any expedition or adventure, however well planned: a willingness to behold the wonder of a Mystery that is bigger than anything (anyone) I might imagine. One does not trust one’s body, mind or soul to the immensity of the skies without that sliver of uncertainty, that shiver of expectation at what might await ahead. As John O’Donohue confirms, ‘the soul is full of wanderlust’:
The soul is full of wanderlust. When we suppress the longing to wander in the inner landscapes, something dies within us. The soul and the spirit are wanderers; their place of origin and destination remain unknown; they are dedicated to the discovery of what is unknown and strange. …
Part of the wonder of being a person is the continual discoveries that you find emerging in your own self; nothing cosmically shattering, merely the unfathomable miracle of ordinary being. This is the heart of longing and what always calls us to new forms of belonging. (Eternal Echoes 68, 70-72)
The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.
‘The Crossing’
Jericho Brown
the unfathomable miracle of ordinary (iPhone image)
image into ikon 