But there are journeys that are achingly slow. The roads seem all uphill. The night stretches on. The ribbon of the highways and the byways unfurl and unwind in a seemingly endless spool. You get impatient for the hor is getting late, and there seem to be no end to this path you are taking. The sense of anticipation of glad arrivals has long gone, replaced by some implacable dread, and nameless anxiety. You think you can bear it a little bit more if you only have an idea where this is going. You wish somehow a map is given, and clearly marked in red X is the destination. If you know how far and where you are headed, at least the endless landscape of utter loneliness and barren skies will not seem so forlorn. You wish to arrive – to be birthed anew, so to speak. This liminal space is now getting cramped. But for now, you are on your way– transient,mobile, on the go, but agonizingly still far off from where you are supposed to arrive.
And there are back roads that seem to detour and take you back to where you began. There never seems to be any departures at all – for you keep finding yourself at the starting point, the mileage shows a great distance has been travelled, but it does not seem to go anywhere but where you first began. In fact, it seemed like you have never began at all. You circleback in some twisted and unexpected ways. The recalculations do not seem to compute. These roads take you back to times past. The ghosts of yesterday are your constant companions. These roads are the familiar terrains: places, people and events you never seem to get away from. While backtracking is sometimes inevitable, may these only be a way to measure how far you have gone, to figure out the difference between this point and that point. But these detours only remind us of the distance yet to be covered – of the lessons, and the forgotten things that needed to be let go. Patiently, you rediscover the landscape once more, hoping that the signs will have changed, the direction leading to somewhere new and undiscovered.
Still there are journeys that never begin or have not begun yet. You wait in eager expectation. The bags are packed, the motor running, thetank filled with the fuel of optimism and desire. In your hearts are the highways toward that glorious place you have been told. Yet the maps do not point to any departures anytime soon. But you stay there, idling. You know you need toget going, you know the roads await you, but there is no push to get going. Forsome reason or another, there are delays, and closed roads. And you sit therefrustrated. You wait. Or maybe the roads are open, but it is you that is resisting. You refuse to leave. You do not wantto get going. You hope that these departures never come, and then they do, you wish to delay it as much as you can because the risk is too much, everything is at stake. You fear of losing everything if you take the journey – but you do not realize that you will lose everything if you don’t get going anytime soon. The sacred journeys are all about losing and finding – but you never find until you lose.
Whatever roads you are trodding these days, know this: youare not alone. There are many pilgrims on their way, and they are the bestcompanions one can have. Welcome them into your lives – make room for them.
Ultimately, find comfort in the knowledge that our Guide is wise – He knows theways. He has the map, and the destinations He has in store for us aremarvelous. Our hope is an odd one. It is the hope of arrival. It is the hope of being face to face with the One who's only been seen in glimpses. Every traveller longs to one day go home.
Our hope is finally to unpack our suitcases once and for all and take up residence in the Home none of us has ever visited. As the songwriter Phil Keaggy put it so simply, "What a day that will be!"
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