The Spiritual Journey and Its Risks

Traveling through life is a lot like making a trip. It’s likely to include revisiting some familiar places but also going to new places, and the new places are likely to bring new awareness and maybe require new behavior.

I’ve lived in very few places, but all my life I’ve traveled a lot. Some of my earliest memories are of my father poring over maps, planning our next summer vacation trip. He thought about it all winter, and by spring he was making motel reservations.  Early on the first day of his annual vacation time, he and my mother and I set out from our home in Houston. Every day we covered as much territory as we could. And we didn’t come home until the very last day. Then after marriage, my husband was the one who pored over travel magazines and tour catalogs, thinking about where we might go next.

My travels remind me of how physical journeys are like the journey of life and the journey we make toward God.

 The destination isn’t everything

“Getting there is half the fun,” the Cunard steamship line advertised years ago when many tourists crossed the oceans by ship. My five days on Cunard’s Queen Mary on my first trip to Europe were fun, because I’d never done any such thing before. Usually, however, I dislike the time that has to be spent getting to a trip’s main destination. On family car trips while I was growing up, I loved the national parks and other scenic places we went to, but I usually read while we crossed west Texas and the desert areas of western states. On later car trips, I often read or worked crossword puzzles while we covered familiar territory.

Sometimes that’s unwise. On spiritual journeys and life journeys, what we see along the way can be more important than the place we think we’re trying to reach. And feeling that we’ve arrived can be deadly.

It can lead to smug self-satisfaction and narrowness. Those prevent the continuing growth that’s essential for becoming what God calls us to be. When we assume that we don’t need to reconsider scriptures we’ve read often or ideas we’ve rejected, we likely to miss the growth God wants us to experience.

 Wilderness times can be valuable

Times when we seem to be between destinations or wandering aimlessly—when we feel as if we’re in a wilderness—can be useful despite being boring or even painful. Since the fourth century when monks went to the Syrian desert, many Christians have deliberately gone to the wilderness to find God. Some go on retreats to escape the daily routine in order to focus on the spiritual journey. We sometimes end up in a wilderness without choosing to, when illness or something else unexpected removes us from our usual patterns. The lack of other activity during such times can make us more likely to notice God. It can let us prepare for whatever God may call us to do next.

Traveling light brings freedom

Every time I get home from a trip I vow to take fewer clothes next time, but I keep taking more than I need. I’m always trying to be prepared for whatever weather and activities might come along. I’m likely to have my folding umbrella in my purse even when I go on short errands at home on a sunny day. I know that being prepared for everything is impossible, but it’s still hard for me to resist trying. By contrast, a friend of mine has made several trips to Europe and Asia taking only a backpack. I can’t imagine myself doing that, but I can see how useful it is. The more baggage we have, the harder it is for us to move around, and the more advance notice we need for changing plans.

On our life journeys and spiritual journeys, the baggage of past experience can be a hindrance. Carrying grudges and prejudices can keep us from connecting with people God sends across our path. Thinking there’s only one right way to worship can keep us from experiencing God in new ways. Being weighed down with anger about past mistreatment can keep us from appreciating unexpected kindness.

On trips I still take some clothes I don’t need, but I’ve cut down. I’ve realized that function usually matters more than appearance. Wearing the shoes that look best for an opera or an upscale restaurant can keep me from being able to walk to an interesting sight that’s in the same vicinity, so I no longer give those shoes space in my luggage. On the spiritual journey, following traditions in order to look good to other people can keep us from going where God wants us to go.

The map isn’t the journey

Looking at maps and travel magazines at home can be interesting and helpful, but it’s not like traveling. Using maps and guidebooks during a trip is helpful only up to a point. On car trips I’ve missed interesting sights because my head was buried in a map or guidebook, preparing for something farther down the road. And carrying too many maps and books sometimes kept me from walking as far as I could otherwise walk.

The spiritual journey has these dangers, too. Reading the Bible to find out about being a Christian is useful for a start, but we can’t fully know what being a Christian means until we put it into practice. Sometimes instead of reading more in the Bible we need to get busy doing what we’ve read about.

Tourists miss a lot

Many of us can do our physical traveling only as tourists, but that kind of travel has drawbacks. It does for the spiritual journey, too.

Merely dabbling in the Christian life is like being a tourist. We see only what’s best known and most obvious. We measure unfamiliar viewpoints and religious beliefs only by our own.  This makes us seem rude and arrogant to others, and it may keep us from considering new viewpoints that God wants us to consider. It may even keep us from seeing the sinfulness of some of our beliefs and customs.

 Journeys bring surprises

I still remember the shock of seeing a department store in downtown Toronto named Hudson’s Bay Co. In school I’d learned about its sending out explorers when it was a fur-trading company, but I had no idea it still existed. In Rome I was startled to see on manhole covers “SPQR,” the initials of “the Senate and the Roman People” in Latin. I remembered seeing that monogram in my 9th-grade Latin textbook, but I hadn’t dreamed it was still in use. Seeing the snow-covered Alps for the first time was unforgettable. Experiences like these make travel exciting for me, just as surprising discoveries can make the spiritual journey exciting.

Some mementos help, some don’t

Even when I’ve enjoyed new things and beautiful sights on my travels, I sometimes lose track of what I’ve seen and where I’ve seen it. I remember my father rolling his eyes and shaking his head in frustration when I said I couldn’t remember whether the Grand Canyon was in Arizona or New Mexico.

Mementos can help. When I wear the amber necklace I bought several years ago in Visby, a tiny Swedish island that I’d never even heard of before I went there, I mentally revisit it. When I re-encounter scriptures that have been important in my spiritual journey—Romans 12:2 or Luke 13:12, perhaps—they revive my willingness to keep doing what I think God is calling me to do.

I often save things I don’t need to save, however. A brochure listing Santa Fe art exhibits was useful when I was there, but at home now it’s mere clutter. We can clutter up our spiritual lives with no-longer-useful mementos, too. Scriptures that forbid women from wearing braided hair, gold, and pearls (1 Tim. 2:9, 1 Pet. 3:3), for example, may have shown God’s will to the people of another time and culture, but they probably don’t portray God’s will for us now.

Getting the picture but missing the view

The main travel mementos that I’ve saved are photographs. When I get home from a trip I love looking at them. They remind me of beautiful scenes, traveling companions, and what was happening in my life when I made the trip. Like saving other mementos, however, taking pictures can be overdone. I’ve missed seeing important sights because I was taking pictures of something else nearby. I’ve even gotten home and seen something in a picture I took, that I didn’t notice when I was there.

Pictures can’t replace making the trip. I have boxes full of pictures my parents took on their many trips, and I hate to throw them away, but saving pictures of trips I didn’t make is probably pointless. And the gifts and postcards I send to friends from my travels can’t convey what the trips mean to me. Similarly, descriptions of others’ spiritual journeys can be helpful, but they’re not like making the journey.

Meeting other travelers can help

An enjoyable part of travel is meeting other travelers and hearing about where they’ve been. It can give valuable information about where we’re currently headed, and it can make us aware of interesting trips we haven’t previously considered. Finding someone from home in a far-away place is fun, too, whether it’s planned or unexpected. Sometimes being with a familiar person in an unfamiliar place reveals interests that I hadn’t known we shared. That can happen on the spiritual journey, too, and when it does it’s exciting.

New sights bring new awareness

Travel teaches us a lot about other cultures and earlier civilizations. It can make us reevaluate our own in needed ways. I’ve seen how irreplaceable artworks have been damaged or even destroyed by people who disagreed with their religious intent and couldn’t separate it from their artistic value. Was that wise?  I doubt it, but I’m not sure. I’ve seen priceless paintings and once-magnificent pipe organs crumbling for lack of maintenance. Do other uses of funds deserve higher priority? I’m not sure, but I’m sure that having such questions brought to mind is important.

What kind of journey are you making?

Whether it’s armchair travel or circling the globe, and whether it’s a physical journey, a spiritual one, or the journey through life, getting away from what’s familiar can enliven life and increase awareness of God. Whether that result happens, however, depends on how we travel. Our churches include spiritual stay-at-homes and spiritual travelers. They include people who want to see more, those who are afraid to see more, and those who aren’t willing to risk the temporary discomfort that almost any journey includes. Which kind of spiritual traveler are you?

Are you missing God-given opportunities?

I’m amazed by the travelers who make expensive trips to faraway places but don’t get out and see what’s most distinctive about those places. On a Caribbean trip a few years ago my husband and I rushed out every time the ship docked at a new port, to see as much as we could in the available time. But two couples we met had brought folding chairs and a portable TV from home, and at every port they merely took them to the nearest beach and sat there until time to get back on the ship. We were seeing many kinds of locally grown fruits in open-air markets at every stop, but the only fruits available on our ship were apples, bananas, and oranges. At local restaurants, we had marvelous dishes featuring local fish and vegetables, but shipboard meals offered only the most familiar U.S. foods like steak, potatoes, and green beans.

On our spiritual journeys, too, we sometimes fail to take advantage of opportunities to learn and grow. Christian tradition and even our own congregations include worship styles, experiences, and people that could increase our awareness of God if we sampled what they had to offer us.

Newly recognized kindred spirits

Spiritual journeys can lead us closer not only to God but also to kindred spirits we haven’t been aware of before, even though we’ve been in the same church or other groups. Here’s how Quaker author Thomas R. Kelly puts it in his book A Testament of Devotion. “Some men and women whom we have never known before, or whom we have noticed only as a dim background for our more special friendships, suddenly loom large, step forward in our attention as men and women whom we now know to the depths. Our earlier conversations with these persons may have been few and brief, but now we know them, as it were, from within. For we discern that their lives are already down within that Center which has found us . . . ” [1]

Religious tourists or real Christians?

I’ve been merely a tourist on most of my physical journeys. I haven’t been in residents’ homes or become aware of what everyday life is like in the places I’ve visited. In a way, being a tourist gives only a superficial view of a place, but it’s probably better than never have seen the place at all. For spiritual journeys as well as for physical ones, being a tourist has some important benefits.

• Tourists see how people live, think, and worship in places other than where the tourists live. That can help them recognize both the advantages and the shortcomings of their own ways.

• Tourists can learn about other areas' history and culture, getting a better perspective on their own. For the spiritual journey, broadening our view lets us realize that a variety of religious practices have been used by Christians throughout history. We find, too, that all of the forms in which the church has existed reflect the cultures they were in. When we look beyond our own experience, we see that the kind of church we happen to know and prefer isn't the only valid kind.

• Tourists often see unusually beautiful parts of the natural world. This experience can increase their awareness of God and their appreciation for God's creation. Similarly, exploring the world of religion can reveal beauty in the varied ways that people use for prais­ing God and communicating with God.

• ·Travel can provide a needed break from the pressures of day-to-day responsibilities reducing stress and letting us approach the responsibilities with fresh strength and enthusiasm.

Being a tourist has drawbacks, too

• If we stay only for a short time in a place, see only its most obvious or most famous sights, see only what a guide shows us, and don't understand the local language, we may get an inaccurate picture. This can happen with the spiritual journey, too, if we switch churches or dabble in spiritual disciplines without staying long enough to see their real worth.

• When we travel we sometimes unreasonably expect the host area and its people to be a carbon copy of our home territory, and to provide all that we're used to for our comfort and convenience. I was reminded of this at a church committee meeting in the U.S.  a few years ago. A member from Norway and I were both coughing and sneezing. I laughingly said to her, "I got this ailment in Norway when I was there recently. I was so hot when the temperature and humidity were high and no buildings were air-conditioned." She replied, "I get a cold every time I come to the U.S., because every building has such cold air-conditioning. I freeze the whole time I'm here."

• Tourists' lodgings, meals, clothing, and entertainment are often extravagant and wasteful compared to the living conditions of the host area's residents, creating un­derstandable resentment. And isn't this the way our mainline U.S. churches often look, too, when much of what we do is geared to upper-class and middle-class lifestyles and educational levels?

• Some tourists disrupt worship in famous church buildings, or routine activities in other buildings, treating them as mere curiosities or as objects provided for the tourists' enjoyment rather than, respecting their real purpose.

• The money and time spent on tourism might be better used for direct help to people who lack necessities. However, in many areas tourism furnishes the locals residents’ main income. This aspect of tourism raises the much larger question of how to help people who have fewer material resources than we do. Should we get rid of the resources we have, or use our God-given abilities to put them to productive use so we can give financial help? Tourism also raises the question of whether being a completely faithful follower of Christ would permit doing anything purely for enjoyment. It's hard to know how to apply scriptures to such questions, or what to do in situations that scripture doesn't seem to address.

Several years ago, the UMC bishop of my area referred disparagingly to me and to Connections readers as religious tourists. "Religious tourists,” he wrote, “often fail to realize the pain, struggle, good intentions, hard work, sacrifice of time, creative successes, and all other in-depth experiences of an office or task." This made me wonder—am I really just a religious tourist. What makes someone a real part of the church—a person who is on a spiritual journey? The bishop's letter implied not only that I was a religious tourist but also that all other lay and ordained Christians who weren't in the church's top-level positions were.

"Opinions or judgments without immersion," his letter continued, "can miss the mark. Tourism, whether it is in religion or travel, may take notice of many collapsed old shrines and speak disparagingly about their ugliness, but never commit to the hard work and time that may bring about their restoration." Having devoted quite a bit of time, effort, and money to the church for years, as many other lay and clergy members have, I wondered what more it would take to be "immersed" in it and thus qualified to speak. Besides, I don't believe that restoring old shrines is what God calls us to do. I was uneasy, too, about the bishop's use of "miss the mark." That's a well-known definition of sin.

Although tourism has both positive and negative aspects, the bishop's use of "religious tourists" seems to refer only to the negative aspects. It's a put-down of all of us who aren't top church officials. And based on what I read and hear from all over the U.S., I'm afraid it shows an attitude that is found often at the top of church hierarchies. It's an attitude that portrays us as mere visitors, not as real parts of the church.

• It pictures us as passive receivers who contribute nothing worthwhile.

• It pictures us as intruders who interrupt and hinder the church's real work.

• It portrays us as spectators instead of participants.

• It pictures us as people whose view is too limited to have any value, simply because we don't have all the information that top church office-holders have. "How sad for the church," a laywoman wrote me, "that this bishop feels it is only those who are ordained who have all the answers for the church. I guess the Pope felt the same way in the time of Martin Luther.'' Another laywoman wrote, "That sort of patronizing attitude will contribute to the decline of our churches. No wonder there's so much apathy. It may be God's way of pointing to a problem."

• The “religious tourist" image pictures lay church members as people who can't understand or participate fully because they don't speak the language. It implies that members who want to be taken seriously by the church must learn the language of the institutional church and of academic theology.

• The "religious tourist" image also contradicts what the Bible says about having different gifts and being called to minister in different ways. It portrays some God-given callings as more valid than others. As one layman wrote me about the bishop's letter, "It strikes at the core of what being a Christian means. It raises the question about whether there are levels of being Christian. It says the most valuable level is the clergy, headed by the bishops."

No voice without experience?

"Commentary, without experience in the areas you are critiquing," wrote the bishop, "leads to large misconceptions and gross misunderstandings about the office." Such comments imply that only the people holding top church offices like his have the right to express opinions about how such offices should be conducted.

Of course it's a lot easier to say how a job should be done when you aren't the person who has to do it. However, I don't think this means that only church officials should speak about how their jobs should be done. As a layman who read the bishop's letter wrote me, "By this logic, only former and current presidents and members of Congress should vote in U.S. elections."

Every organization needs to have frank opinions expressed continually by people who aren't the organization's employees or top office-holders. And for this to happen, members must know that neither seeking information nor expressing opinions contrary to the leaders' opinions will cause a member to be demoted, denied leadership roles, or punished and silenced in other ways.

We're all tourists, but God calls us all

In a sense we’re all merely tourists on the religious journey. None of us--even bishops, clergy, or the most active lay church members­-can go all the way into God's presence and take up residence there. But despite this, God invites all of us farther in--even occasional church attenders and non­participants. God also calls us to travel together. Can any of us legitimately say that our fellow travelers aren't qualified to make the trip? I don't think so.[2]

Another kind of journey, spiritual or physical, is pilgrimage. Author Phil Cousineau finds this a powerful metaphor for any journey with the purpose of finding something that matters deeply to the traveler. Like the journey of the three wise men to find the baby Jesus, it may be a journey in search of God. The church celebrates this event as Epiphany, which means an appearance of a god. I find that’s an unfamiliar term to many churchgoers, however.

I was reminded of how unfamiliar it is when I phoned a pastor one day and he was out. His secretary said, “He’s gone to the Epiphany.” This was a couple of weeks after January 6, so I didn’t think he’d gone to an Epiphany worship service. I considered the possibility of his having gone to some other kind of appearance by God. “Has he gotten a direct message from God saying God is making a public appearance today?,” I wondered. “Has the Second Coming happened without my knowing it? Has the ‘rapture’ occurred and left me behind?” I never knew where that pastor had gone that day.

the Three Wise Men can remind us of the journey of every wise person who searches and finds God.

Something sacred waits to be discovered

“The deepening of our journeys,” Phil Cousineau says of both spiritual and physical journeys, “begins the moment we begin to ask what is sacred to us.” Here’s how he defines that. “What is sacred is what is worthy of our reverence, what evokes awe and wonder in the human heart, and what when contemplated transforms us utterly.” It’s God. What makes a journey a pilgrimage is looking for evidence of God’s presence and finding it.

Pilgrimage has traditionally meant a transformative journey to a sacred place. For some Christians, that has meant places like Santiago de Compostela, Lourdes, and Assisi. In general, however, a pilgrimage is travel that’s mindful instead of mindless. It’s soulful instead of soulless. “If we truly want to know the secret of soulful travel,” Cousineau finds, “we need to believe that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey.”

Journeys of risk and renewal

Pilgrimage has another important f*"j aspect, too. Says Cousineau, “It is a journey of risk and renewal.” A journey without challenge has no meaning, he finds, K and one without purpose has no soul.

Does your journey through life have purpose? Are you traveling in a way that involves risk? Are you looking for what is sacred? In your spiritual journey, do you deliberately expose yourself to new experiences that might bring renewal and reveal God’s presence? Or do you take only the predictable, familiar route that’s comfortable and safe?

The reward can make a risk worth taking

On physical journeys, I try to avoid risk and discomfort. I prefer places that, like home, are clean, air-conditioned, relatively well maintained, and free of constantly clamoring souvenir-sellers. I often prefer to see scenery through car, bus, or train windows instead of by getting out into it. I prefer sticking with roads that are on the map, too. Before I start out, I want to know where I can expect to end up, and how long getting there is likely to take.

I realize, however, that some of my memorable travel experiences have ft come only because I did something that felt risky. I remember going to a mathematics museum in Paris when I was a college student majoring in math. Seeing original manuscripts of the famous mathematicians whose work I’d previously seen only in textbooks was a powerful experience. To get to the museum, however, I had to go alone by subway and depend on my very meager knowledge of French. That little journey felt very daring to me, and if I hadn’t risked making it I would have missed a rewarding experience.

We miss paths that God wants us to travel

Some of us stick to the familiar route by focusing only on Bible verses that confirm what we already believe about God, instead of considering others that might show us more of God. We look only at scriptures that comfort us, and avoid those that challenge us. We refuse to try ways of praying and worshiping that have been widely used throughout Christian history but aren’t familiar to us. By limiting ourselves to what is familiar, we may miss paths on which God wants to lead us.

... by paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light ...

—Isaiah 42:16

Physical risks and spiritual risks

I’m much more willing to take risks on the spiritual journey than on physical ones. In the realm of ideas, beliefs, and religious experience I don’t mind exploring un-familiar territory or being temporarily uncomfortable. In fact, I find that kind of exploration helpful.

I see, however, that unlike me many other people like to explore unknown roads in the physical world, and they like active involvement more than mere sightseeing, but they avoid spiritual exploration. On the spiritual journey they want to stick with what’s familiar and predictable. They don’t even want to consider new information about the Bible or Christian history, or new ways of understanding God.

Which of these is your way of traveling? On your spiritual journey are you missing rich rewards by not venturing into territory that’s foreign to you? Does not knowing traditional religious language keep you from exploring? Or do you rely on maps like the Bible and the writings of other Christians, and go bravely forward? Even when you feel temporarily lost, you can usually get help from knowledgeable people along your route. The reward is often worth the risk.

Why travel without seeing what’s there?

I’m amazed by travelers who ignore the main features of the places they travel to. Traveling on ships I’ve been astonished by how many people never get off in the ports the ship stops at, or if they get off, it’s only to do things they could have done at home. That’s how some of us treat religious practices, too. We may be surrounded by some that could be helpful for our spiritual journey, but we avoid trying them or even learning what value their adherents see in them.

Many churches tend to offer only the most familiar religious practices, too. That makes the spiritual journey resemble an experience my family once had on a car trip in the northwestern U.S. We kept passing cherry orchards and cherry-juice canneries, but when we asked for cherry juice at breakfast in a local restaurant, the waitress looked at us in astonishment. The only available juice was orange juice. On your spiritual journey, are you like the travelers who ignore what the places they visit have to offer? Are you feeding yourself only the spiritual equivalent of orange juice, instead of sampling the variety of spiritual foods that the Christian tradition includes? If so, you may be missing experiences that would nourish your faith and reveal God to you more fully.

Finding our ancestors

We often think of pilgrimages as travels to places where a religious leader was born or experienced God in a striking way, or where healings have reportedly happened through the influence of a holy person. Phil Cousineau, however, reminds his readers of the many travelers who make what amounts to a pilgrimage to trace their ancestry. They may look for legal records, gravestones, and other evidence of who their ancestors were and what kind of life they lived, or they may find distant relatives.

Some travels take us where our spiritual ancestors rather than our biological ones lived. I remember how inspiring it was to be at the site of Ephesus and other places in Greece and Turkey where the apostle Paul preached and started churches. Seeing those sites made parts of the Bible come alive. Seeing where Martin Luther supposedly put his ninety-five theses on the church door in Wittenburg was an inspiring experience too.

Have you gotten acquainted with your spiritual ancestry? Traveling to other countries isn’t the only way. Reading and talking with other Christians about people who have taken brave steps in response to God’s call will show you some spiritual ancestors.

Venturing off the spiritual tour bus

Staying only a short time in a place, or being limited to where a tour bus takes you and what a tour guide tells you, can give a false picture or at least an incomplete one. That’s true of spiritual travel, too. Staying on the “tour bus” of familiar church practices shows us some of the spiritual landscape, but it may keep us from finding our best route to God.

Age doesn’t limit the spiritual journey

I’ve gotten more fearful about travel as I’ve gotten older, yet in my better moments, I know that aging doesn’t have to keep me from going to new places. I keep remembering the 94-year-old man who whizzed past me every time I stopped, panting, on the way to the top of the acropolis of each Greek city I visited several years ago. I want to be like him on the spiritual journey. Even when it’s a rocky, uphill trek, I hope to keep going, plunging ahead to whatever new territory God may call me to investigate.

Sleeping pills for the spirit

As scholar Robert M. Price writes in When Faith Meets Reason, “The quest for answers is itself a spiritual exercise, one more bracing and productive than thinking one has all the answers. ... Dogmatic beliefs seem to be sleeping pills for the spirit.”

No escape if we’re true to ourselves

Here’s what scholar Robert W. Funk, whose personal story appears in When Faith Meets Reason: Religious Scholars Reflect on Their Spiritual Journeys (Polebridge Press, 2008), says he had to consider in deciding whether to risk blossoming. “At what point does the discrepancy between what I know, or think I know ... and what I am willing to say publicly become so acute that my personal integrity is at stake?” But he reached the conclusion that I and so many others have also reached: “There is no escape if you wish to be true to yourself.”

[1] November 2000

[2] February 1998