Apophatica

Journeys are important; both the outward ones and the inward ones.

I am coming off of the Lenten journey which was an inward journey to begin my sabbatical journey which is both.  I want it to be a meaningful trek toward beauty with those that I care for as well as an odyssey toward the immortal diamond that awaits within and gets ever brighter with each inward step.

I need this to be as intentional as it can be as I sit in monasteries of various faiths in silence, with the chant of psalms on my lips, or with the echoes of The Hymn of the Cherubim in acoustic reverence – be it from the sound of speakers or the lips of actual angels.

I need it to be genuine as I hike mile after mile never failing to be in awe of the vistas that lay before me in their natural splendor or of the person grasping my hand next to me.

I need to go as deep as possible into my inner well when bringing pen to paper or fingers to keyboard as I write my way across the internal abyss toward my true self.

To do these things I have to stay present and aware in each moment.  I have recently found that there is a question that helps me to achieve this sometimes elusive task: What am I curious about right now?  I often say that questions create an immediate shift and this one brings me back to center and present.

I can recall hearing Philip Yancey say at the Princeton Writer’s Workshop that most writers are writing to a question and they only sometimes get to an answer.  That’s the beauty of living in the mystery.  I don’t need to find the answer, but at least having a question makes me take the first step on the journey because, after all, every journey begins with a single step.

So, whether it be in the spirit of John Niles or Langston Hughes, I will “wonder as I wander” and remain fully aware of the effulgence that is beaming around me, next to me, and within me. 

This entry was posted on April 9, 2021 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.