The Journey of Unknowing (part 3): "The Journey" by Mary Oliver

The Journey
Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

(Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems: Volume One, Beacon Press)


It is possible to spend a life waiting for just the right circumstance to arise in order to live your "one wild and precious life" . . . waiting for the way to come clear, waiting for the obvious marker or the clear sign that illumines the path ahead of you.

And further, it is possible to know there is a path calling to you and even to search for that path, while at the same time making all kinds of contingency plans that will catch you if the path does not work out. These safety nets -- "a life of contingency," I heard someone once call it -- are constructed of all our fears . . . the fears that we will not be as successful in the path as we had hoped, or that we might be misunderstood if we take an alternative path, or that we'll be embarrassed before peers to be seen on this less-traveled road.

Yet, there is also a weariness to the life of contingency, a sense of exhaustion that comes from continually creating safety nets that can catch us when we fail. We grow weary of life, and even weary of our own efforts to control and manipulate our own lives according to self-made plans and dreams.

And then, a few times in every life there come moments when "you finally know what you have to do, and you begin" . . . against all odds, against your well-trained instincts, against the bad advice of your controlling mind, against the grain of your friends and family.

You begin. Finally. You set out, though you cannot see where the journey will take you, and you cannot see clearly the road you are traveling. You simply know that you must walk this way. You finally know what you have to do, led by your soul . . . and you begin, led by your feet.

The long waiting waiting waiting for this moment to arrive may itself be a kind of procrastination, frozen in place waiting for just the right recipe of ingredients to be mixed together, waiting for clarity about the way forward, waiting for an unobscured view of what the days ahead look like.

When I get frozen in this place, perhaps "knowing what I have to do," and yet without the courage to "begin," it sometimes takes a life-jolt, some unexpected event to push me where I have not been willing to go on my own . . . a separation or divorce, a betrayal, a difficult diagnosis, an unexpected loss . . . something that more or less presses my position or forces my hand. I find in those moments, then, the struggle is not so much to move onward to a new path, but rather to stay where I am -- it would take more energy to stay put than to embark on a different path.

The image is something like the baby bird who wants to stay in the comfort of the nest, yet finally must step out into the vast unknown.

In fact, the place of comfort and safety where we have made our nest may not be as comfortable and safe as we think. And to be "pushed out" of that place may actually mark the beginning of "life."

Of course, there are all sorts of reasons not to set out on a journey which is largely unknown to us. So many valid excuses can hold us in place, paralyzing us in shame . . . or keeping us locked in a small room of fear . . . or warning us about dangers of going where there is no security . . . or reminding us of the unknown obstacles that are not evident from where we currently stand.

In fact, the voices from within me "shouting their bad advice" may be louder than those coming from outside me.

For all the reasoned excuses for not taking this path, Mary Oliver writes, "But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do."

This is the very nature of the spiritual journey, of the path which is not visible. Understanding and seeing are not necessary for this journey, or at least seeing in the sense of an outer seeing.

On this journey, we learn to see with the inner eye. We learn to notice the interior landscape more than the exterior landscape (because in the "cloud of unknowing," we cannot see the exterior landscape!). With increasingly sharp focus, we see what our own inner self looks like, what we have believed, what has shaped us, what we have trusted (and mistrusted), what ideas we have built life around, what we have clung to for life which could not possible give life.

The what's, where's, and how's of the outer journey simply become tools for the more interior work which is our life's work . . . unfolding to be the persons we were created to be.

Advent's Slow Crawl

This past Sunday was the First Sunday of Advent.

The season of Advent is intended for preparation, waiting, and expectancy, beginning four Sundays before Christmas. Advent themes of hope, love, peace, and joy are intended to prepare our hearts for the birth of Jesus. In Advent truly conceived, that birth is not a faraway event represented by a calendar date, but rather a birth that takes place continually within human hearts as we make room for the coming of Christ within us.

For me, though, the season of Advent begins as more of a slow crawl. I don't get a running start, or even a rolling start into Advent. In the United States, the first days of Advent fall on the heels of Thanksgiving, travel, Black Friday, and gatherings with family and friends.

Advent crawls out of the blocks. I have to make myself speak the words and sing the songs. I'm grateful for the season, the colors, the candles, the readings, just not quite ready for it.

But Advent doesn't inquire about my readiness, nor does it particularly care whether or not I'm prepared for the season. It doesn't mind that I'm road-weary from travel or overloaded with tryptophan or that Black Friday and Cyber Monday have stuffed my inbox with two email ads for every one I can delete.

Advent comes, ready or not. It comes . . . to announce a coming.

Christ has come . . . Christ is coming . . . Christ will come.

Christ comes always, continuously, in every time. Christ comes everywhere, relentlessly, in every place, welcoming or not.

This is my slow crawl into Advent. I don't feel bad about it -- though years ago I did -- but rather just accept it for what it is. I'll come around. I'll get there eventually.

Give me a bit . . . I'll catch up to you.

Psalm 40 . . . In the Early Drafts

Psalm 40:1 - 6

I waited patiently upon the LORD;
he stooped to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay;
he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.

He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God;
many shall see, and stand in awe,
and put their trust in the LORD.

Happy are they who trust in the LORD!
they do not resort to evil spirits or turn to false gods.

Great things are they that you have done, O LORD my God!
how great your wonders and your plans for us!
there is none who can be compared with you.

Oh, that I could make them known and tell them!
but they are more than I can count.


Parts of Psalm 40 sound cliched, like a too-good-to-be-true formula for getting what we want from God, or for getting what we think we need in life.

1. I wait patiently for the Lord.

2. God leans toward me and hears my request.

3. God rescues, or heals, or comes to my aid, or gives me a really sweet job, or "blesses" me with a BMW.

4. Others will see it, and want in on that sweet God-action!

5. Repeat above formula as needed.

As I've prayed with this psalm in recent days, creating a formula or a pattern with which to manipulate God (what some might call a "Bible promise") did not seem like such a good idea. It didn't seem too honest. I recognize the legitimacy of the perspective with which this person in Psalm 40 prayed these words, but I also recognize the danger in making his or her testimony into a proposition or a formula that, if followed, yields the same results.

Then I wondered if there might be other "drafts" or editions of this psalm that I could consult. Would they express such a positive outlook? Would they come to the same neat and tidy ending? As it happened, I found several earlier drafts of the psalm in the Archive of Lost Biblical Psalms.

There was one draft, for instance, that went like this: "I had no time to wait for the Lord. Patience, schmatience! God works way too slow for me. God can't keep up with my busy schedule. So I took matters into my own hands . . . I explored every option . . . I investigated every course of action. God gave me a brain, after all, and expects me to use it! Besides, waiting is wasted time. God wants us to be active, to take the initiative, to be people of action."

Another draft went like this: "I waited patiently for the Lord . . . for about 24 hours. Then I waited impatiently for the Lord. Why can't You speed this up, God? I can't wait forever, you know. So God, I'm waiting, waiting, waiting. Would you please hurry up? I'm waiting, impatiently, for the Lord. . . ."

There was the draft of Psalm 40 in the Archives that said: "I waited patiently for the Lord, and I waited, and I waited . . . and I have spent a lifetime waiting. I wait for some sign, for some movement, any indication that there will be rescue or healing. This is a long, long time to wait, Lord . . . days that stretch into weeks and months, and then the weeks and months become years. In fact, I may be waiting a lifetime. Finally, I didn't get rescued from the pit . . . rather, I waited so long that I ended up making my home in the pit . . . and I decorated my house with the miry clay. The pit became my home, not comfortable, but familiar, so that even if someone had come along to rescue me, I would have refused."

Then there was this draft of the psalm that went something like: "I waited for you, Lord, in patience and openness. I prayed and tried to stay vigilant. And you leaned in, you heard my cry. You were attentive to me. But you did not give me what I asked for. You did not give me what I wanted. You did not remove the trouble. You did not lift me out of the pit. I wanted rescue and deliverance, to be taken out of this cancer . . . this difficult work situation . . . this troubled relationship . . . You didn't give me that. You gave me something else. You gave me something unexpected. You surprised me."


In the Christian tradition, yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, the day on which the Church remembers the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). For all of the biblical symbols for God's Spirit (fire, breath, wind, water), most often I've found God's Spirit manifested in surprise. If I receive what I've expected, there may not be much of God's Spirit blowing in it. On the other hand, when I'm open to surprise and the unexpected, God's Spirit is most often the driving wind behind it.

For example, in Acts 1 and 2, Jesus had instructed his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming Spirit. They thought they were waiting for the coming of the Kingdom. What they received, instead, were tongues of fire and a radical empowerment for the days ahead of them.

"God, You are in the surprise at the end of my waiting, the unexpected outcome, the thing I have not looked for, nor sought. Your Spirit is most manifested, not in the formula carried out, but in the posture that is open to surprise. So I want to be open and receptive, attentive to see and experience your Spirit in the surprise of the next moment."

This is where God's Spirit, to me anyway, seems to be most alive.

Waiting Is a Moment, Too

Spiritually speaking, waiting may be the most difficult practice for the maturing Christian . . . at least for persons in Western culture. Culturally, we are more practiced at impatience and immediate gratification than we are with sitting still and waiting.

Passivity is frowned upon.

There are few more condemning, more damaging things to say about a person than, "He's lazy!" or "She's lazy!"

As a people, we have subscribed to the guilt-inducing admonition that says, "Don't just stand there. DO SOMETHING!!" The implication is that action is better than inaction, and even wrong-headed or misguided action is better than doing nothing.

The prayers and scriptural words that invite us to "wait on the Lord," seem like a foreign language. We don't know how to do that. We want to take action, to cause something to happen, to rush toward the job completed.


Waiting Is a Moment, Too

Waiting, if we take it seriously, often refers to the time in-between, or the season just before the big thing happens. Much of our human experience of waiting is like this. We think of waiting moments as wasted time or in-between time before the really important thing happens.

So when I wait in a doctor's office (in the "waiting room"), I'm biding time until the important meeting with the doctor.

Or when I wait in an airport terminal, I'm passing time until I board the plane, which is what I really came to the terminal for in the first place.

Or when I wait for guests to arrive at my house, I'm idle until the important time with the guests begins.

Or when I'm waiting for test results from the lab, I'm twiddling my thumbs until I receive those important results.

In each scenario, we approach the waiting time as a prelude to something else. And that "something else" is usually what we deem to be the important stuff.

But waiting is a moment, too. It is not just the lull before the next thing happens. Something is happening in the moment of waiting that is valuable for its own sake, and not just for the sake of what comes next.

[In a religious or a faith context, our language betrays us at this point. People say things like, "God showed up," or "God will meet me there." The language suggests that God is not present in every time and in every place. In fact, God is present in all times and in every space. That means God is just as present in the waiting, in the threshold moments, as in the next big thing we are waiting upon.]

Waiting is a moment, too, a moment in which God is real and present and stirring and inviting. It is not the preparation for something else, but the now in which God is to be experienced in all God's fullness.


Waiting for the Unexpected

I find that people feel they can wait if they have two pieces of information:

First, how long will I have to wait? If I know how long the "waiting" will last, it seems to make the waiting bearable.

Second, for what am I waiting? If I know the shape of the thing to come (the "payoff"??), I'm more likely to wait in order to experience the thing I have anticipated.

Waiting that is consistent with the biblical tradition, however, is most often waiting upon something that is unknown. Most biblical waiting does not come with an attached time-frame, nor does it come with an expected outcome. Persons in the scriptures often waited decades for a promised fulfillment . . . and entire peoples waited centuries for promises to be fulfilled. God didn't guarantee results over a particular span of time. And neither did God always give just what the people expected.

In fact, one of the signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit was the surprise with which God's Spirit acted. At Pentecost (Acts 1 - 2), the disciples were looking for the coming Kingdom of God. When the Spirit came upon them, they got instead tongues of fire and empowerment for the task ahead of them.

The difficult practice of authentic waiting does not promise time-frames, nor does it guarantee specific outcomes. What comes to us at the end of our waiting is borne of the Spirit of Surprise, and it comes in the larger timing of God.

I think it is this kind of waiting that most rubs up against our notions of being in control of our lives and how we plot our life-arches and trajectories. God's Spirit is not subject to our conjectures and our plotting. So our waiting is to be different.

Henri Nouwen called this "open-ended waiting." He meant that what comes at the end of the waiting is not determined by us. It is determined by God, and if we are going to perceive it and participate in it, we must wait with openness. Our hands must be open, and our hearts. Otherwise, we will miss whatever it is that happens on the far end of our waiting. I am invited to wait and to stay open, not to set my sight on a fixed or a determined outcome. This is the way we participate in the work of the Holy Spirit in our world.


Waiting Is Not a Formula for Success

I need to say one more thing about waiting. I want to encourage you not to make a formula out of this waiting process, so that whenever you need something or want something, you pull it out of your pocket and use it to your benefit. "Waiting upon the Lord" is not a formula for your success, or a strategy to be used for your own benefit, or a tool with which you can manipulate God to give you what you want.

Waiting is a life-stance, a posture with which we are invited to live life with God. This stance recognizes that waiting is a moment, too, a moment in which God is present and active, and not just a prelude to the next big thing.

This stance recognizes that there is not a time-frame given for our waiting . . . it is, after all, a life-stance.

And it recognizes that God's Spirit of Surprise often graces us with the unexpected, so the stance includes open hands and open hearts to receive whatever God brings our way.

This is the posture for the person growing into a deeper, more rooted connection with God.