Journeys and Travels in the Spiritual Life

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The Christmas and post-Christmas seasons are really a season of journeys, travels, and seeking. Consider Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem, then to Egypt with Jesus, and then back to Nazareth. Consider the shepherds taking heed of the angels and traveling farther from their hillside to the stable, or the Magi traveling from halfway around the known world to see Jesus and then return by even a different route. 

Countless books have been written about journeys like Captain Ahab seeking to avenge an enemy whale or Ernest Shackleton’s quest to reach the South Pole, to modern journalists and explorers recording the conquest of Mt. Everest and other daring challenges. In the last century we began making journeys into space inspiring most of us to stare at the stars in awe, a little like the Magi wondering where this will lead.

The insightful political columnist David Brooks recounts in a recent essay, his journey of spirituality growing into faith. Some of us might take inspiration from Brooks’s narrative published in The New York Times, December 22, 2024. His journey began while an agnostic and curious intellectual seeking answers about God’s existence. “I looked for books and arguments that would convince me that God was real or not real.” But the books failed, and the arguments were strong and credible in their own way, but they amounted to vapor resisting the dense cloud of doubt. 

For Brooks, faith became real in journeys. He cites the overwhelming feeling in beholding the Chartres Cathedral in France. He recounts a hike he took in Colorado where on a peak with a gopher at his feet, he read from a Puritan prayerbook, “Hemmed in by mountains of sin, I behold Thy glory.” During an excursion on a New York subway in one of the poorest sections of the city, he suddenly had the “shimmering awareness that all the people in (that car) had souls.”  He was getting closer to belief. (This example reminds me of a similar experience the Catholic mystic, Caryl Houselander once had of seeing the Face of Christ on every passenger in a London subway.)

Born and raised a Jew, Brooks’s journey compels him to attend Christian churches along with his cherished Jewish Temple. He has concluded that there is a God. Brooks is having a wonderful time in his exploration, a fruitful ride to be sure. And he claims that faith leads to three movements of the spirit and heart.  First, is the desire to be a better person in this journey. The second movement is to heal the world like doing small things with great love and loving people who are hard to love, the outcasts of society, the threatening strangers among us. This is rooted in the Jewish tradition of ‘tikkun olam,’ meaning to ‘repair the world.’ The third movement is to experience greater intimacy with God. This involves personal and communal prayer, even fasting. Brooks concludes there is a God, “an underlying source of Love pervading everything.” I’m not sure Brooks sees the story of his journey as similar to the Holy Family, the shepherds or the Magi, but there is a poignant analogy to his narrative. His travels, along with a seeking heart, helped him to find, eventually, the God he thought had been so hidden if there at all. 

Reflection

Brooks’s story is not unlike that of many of us. When one is not sure of God, one might find it helpful to set out on a journey, engage in seeking by walking. Go to where help is needed, help you can provide. Go to places that offer awe and splendor so you can be inspired. Go to prayer so you can get to know this God personally. I am friends with people who questioned God’s existence until they volunteered in a soup kitchen or a shelter, or a hospital or nursing home and were converted by the people they served. The God within the marginalized reached out to them.

The journey is never ending and the beauty of it is that around every bend is another thrilling experience to lead you further into the exciting Love that is God. I encourage you to reflect this week on your own journey of faith and spirituality. Write in a journal the peaks and valleys you experienced on this journey. Write down the three movements Brooks suggests for a seeker to have a grace-filled experience. Brooks also said he has made the eight Beatitudes a source of his own reflection to enrich the journey. Take time to reflect on them and choose to work on a few or all of them as you move forward in your spiritual quest. (Matthew 5:3-12)

Remember always, my dear readers, that you are in my prayers every day. I do not know most of you, but I feel connected. Continue to take on the new year with a vigorous spiritual journey.