A step too far?
Meg Gilley contemplates the “journey” metaphor for the spiritual life:
…There are times when the metaphor works really well. I can remember a long wait once at Amsterdam airport, reflecting on how life is like waiting for the next plane. But the metaphor does have its limitations, and I would say on the whole that it is over-used and risks becoming a cliché. It becomes a problem as an image when one feels stuck and the sense that we should be going somewhere in our faith becomes another stick to beat oneself with. It is a problem, too, for people whose spirituality is centred on stability, on staying in one place and experiencing the height and the depth of that domain. It is a problem also because it tends to be used about my spiritual journey, rather than about the shared experience of a community.
The metaphor matters because it helps to shape the way you make sense of your experience. I have travelled with the spiritual journey metaphor for a long time, but I am beginning to feel that it won’t do any more…
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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Interesting. The ‘journey’ metaphor seems to have come into the evangelical church as a reaction to the idea that being born again is everything that matters. In that respect it was a good counter balance but the idea of journey implies going somewhere when there are time when we must ‘Be still and know that I am God.’
Any sportsman or woman will tell you that rest is just as much a part of their training as being active and so in our spiritual lives as well as journeying we need periods of rest.