Spirit-Journey

Is there anyone who is not aware of the metaphor that our life is a journey? That metaphor pops up so many times that really it’s lost any punch for me. “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, I think to myself. Tell me something I DON’T know. Or perhaps, I hear statements like “The destination is the journey”. OK. Don’t just throw that out there and let it stew. Tell me. What am I supposed to do with that information. I’m only moderately better off with it’s corresponding “the journey is the destination.”

Actually, that one does make a little more sense to me. And, I suppose it means exactly the same thing. Where we’re going isn’t the important thing, it’s the getting there. We’re set on this journey (since I apparently am doomed to continue the metaphor) for the purpose of… journeying.

I’ve been thinking about this journey a lot lately. I remember about 17 years or so ago when I was in the seminary, we went on a silent retreat for a full week at Gethsemane  a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. Well, it wasn’t exactly totally silent. First of all, we had several workshops during the retreat and we often had reason to speak during these workshops. And second, many of us found numerous opportunity to violate the spirit of the silence.

I don’t recall the purpose of this one particular exercise we did, but I recall writing about my life as a journey, back when that metaphor had deeper meaning to me. In this particular writing it had to do with backpacking and the kind of trails and whatnot. I recall that at the end of this journey, but not the end, I was given some kind of spiritual rest. Odd, now, that as I write again about that, though the impetus to write this stems from this memory, the more I write, the more the memory flees from me.

But in spite of my disregard for the journey metaphor, at least at this exalted stage of my life, I got to thinking yesterday. At Christmas this year, Scott and I (and our girls) are going home to New Mexico to be with Scott’s family. We’ll also be looking into housing and residency issues while there… just not too hard.

So, as I do all my trips, I pulled out my “trip planning spreadsheet” and fired up Google maps and began the meticulous job of determining at which mile marker on which highway in which state we will stop to let the girls stretch their legs, and at precisely which towns we will fill up the gas tanks. What town will we spend the night, and are there hotels/motels there that permit pets, if so what are their policies?

Will we leave on Friday, and spend the night in York or wait until Saturday am and drive further? Or, will we leave at 6 am or 9 am? Will Route 54 be better or would Route 56? Should I stop in this town, or go 25 miles to the next for our fill up? All these details have to be spelled out, and filled into the spreadsheet, along with calculations and equations and references… How far can we go if we can only get 14 mpg vs 17 mpg?

All these little details to be planned out. I’m good at it. We don’t always follow them, because there is one variable that can’t be planned for. Actually for this trip there are three. Scott, Ixchel and Nikki. But the planning is fun! And having these plans have proven helpful in the past.

For instance, on our trip to England, I had them all tucked away on to my Nook and it was nice to at least have access to the pre-arranged plans in one place.

Then, as I was struggling with all the details, I stopped to consider this journey of life and wondered to myself “Why don’t we set out on this Life-Journey with this kind of pre-planning?”

Life is, indeed, a journey. Some of that journey can be planned, some cannot. For instance, there is the journey of life that begins at birth, and pulls us along until we reach our destination, never arriving until we are gone. This one is hard to plan for, though as we go we can take greater and greater pains to be more focused on each successive leg.

But, there is another journey, one that is dearer to my heart than walking 4000 miles, or driving to New Mexico. It’s dearer, even, than the journey from birth to grave. And it’s one that we all walk, and many never even realize it. (Some would deny they’ve set out or even that they ever WILL set out.) It’s my spiritual journey, my journey from “here” to God.

And it is this Spirit-Journey that is often spoken when “The destination is the journey” or “the journey is the destination” is voiced. It’s also one I think is often more frought with danger than any of the other journeys of our life.

Why don’t we… no, why don’t I… plan for this journey as I do for a trip to New Mexico?

When we set out on our journey to Las Cruces this coming December 22, my plan is to leave home at 6 am. No later than 7. We’ll drive, stopping along the way, as the girls (and Scott and I) dictate, to stretch and for potty breaks. We’ll arrive at about 12:30 in Larned, Kansas, where I’ll put about 25 gallons of gas in the car (assuming a 14 mpg trip – pessimistic, but better to be so) then set off again for another 5 hours, arriving around 7 pm in Dalhart, Texas. That’s the plan.

How does one make similar plan for one’s Spirit-Journey? What are the way stations and weigh stations along the path? How do I measure progress? Richard Rohr in his book “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” says “You cannot do a nonstop flight to the second half of life by reading lots of books about it, including this one.” I won’t go into what he means by ‘second half of life’ other than to say the nonstop flight he’s talking about is roughly analogous to the spiritual journey from ‘here’ to God that I am writing about. He continues that thought with the simple statement “Grace must and will edge you forward.”

As I read that, it dawns on me, no one can set me down, and plan out this journey for me. And no one can prescribe for me specifically how to plan for this journey. But I do believe that planning is essential. And furthermore that it is unnecessary.

There is a great deal of truth to be found, I think, in Richard’s statement “Grace must and will edge you forward.” All of us do, eventually, I believe, get to the end of that journey, finding there the God that has been with us the entire way. What happens then, I don’t know. No one does, though many claim to. Perhaps they’re right. And it’s because of this inevitability of completion that I think it is unnecessary to plan for the journey.

Yet, I also think we can plan, that we should plan, and that furthermore that it is essential that we do plan for this journey. I think the difference between not planning and planning is the amount of head-banging we are willing to put up with as we tread. How many blind paths are we willing to follow? Or how many dark alleys are we prepared to stumble through?

I’ve been running through so many dark alleys and blind paths now for so long, I’m growing weary of it. I want to approach this with more of a plan. I just am not all that sure how to formulate one.