All posts tagged Journey

  • The Magi and I

    James-Jacques-Joseph-Tissot-Journey-Of-The-Magi

    On the Twelfth Day of Christmas and on the Eve of Epiphany I thought I would re-post this. It still speaks to me and for me.

    This is T.S. Eliot’s majestic poem Journey of the Magi with my quasi-interpretation of it. And it’s more than an interpretation — it’s also a kind of autobiographical confession. For I too have had a hard time of it…and like Eliot’s Magi I would do it all over again.
    Read more

  • George MacDonald’s Spiritual Journey (And Mine Too)

    george-macdonald

    George MacDonald’s Spiritual Journey (And Mine Too)
    Brian Zahnd

    “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded George MacDonald as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote him.” –C.S. Lewis

    “I can testify to a book that has made a difference to my whole existence…and it is by George MacDonald.” –G.K. Chesterton

    George MacDonald (
    1824–1905) was a Scottish novelist, poet, preacher, mystic, lecturer, theologian whose writings have had an enormous influence on many Christian thinkers, including C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. In my own spiritual journey I would list George MacDonald’s Lilith as a top ten influence.

    George MacDonald understood as clearly as anyone that salvation is not so much a conferred status as it is a lifelong journey — a continual pressing into the revelation of God in Christ. But to be a public theologian, thinker, writer and on an ever-evolving spiritual journey, rankles the self-appointed gatekeepers of religious certitude. Thus George MacDonald was regularly (and wrongly) accused of heresy for simply not toeing the line of the Scottish Calvinism predominant in his day.

    In the mid 1860’s George MacDonald received a letter from a troubled reader asking why he had lost the “old faith” and embraced what many regarded as “unorthodox” views. MacDonald’s candid reply is brilliant and beautiful and I would like to share it with you. (Plus, as one who has often been criticized for moving beyond an earlier fundamentalist/charismatic certitude, MacDonald’s defense will aptly suffice as my own.)

    Read more

  • Turn The Page

    Tomahutu

    Turn The Page
    Blind Man at the Gate

    In our journey through the holy script we’ve not yet reached THE END
    Turn the page
    All that is to be said has not yet been said
    Turn the page
    Long ago the writers finished the text
    But the players have not yet said it all
    There are heroes yet to take stage
    There are dramas yet to be resolved
    Turn the page
    We’ve lingered long over this familiar leaf
    And it’s beginning to turn yellow
    We’ve begun to forget that which has gone before
    We’ve begun to think there will be no more
    Turn the page
    We find comfort in that which is now too familiar
    But the thrill is gone and the story has stalled
    Turn the page
    To move on in the divine tome is not a betrayal
    Of that which we have come to know and love
    But to understand the story demands that we
    Turn the page
    But those afraid to turn the page
    Discourage and disparage and in fear rage
    “If we turn the page things will change!”
    Yes Read more