I am one that enjoys maps. One of the highlights of our sabbatical trip was the map room at the Vatican. I love to study maps. I don't care much about their age. Old map are fascinating to study. With limited tools, map makers were fairly accurate. I look at maps to see where places I read or hear about are. If I am going somewhere, anywhere, I usually study a map to see reconnoiter roads, towns, places to see, etc.
I am also one to consult a map when lost. I love having GPS in my phone and Google Maps. I confess I am having trouble sometimes making heads or tails out of them, but try I do. I like knowing where I am, where I came from, how I got there, where I am going, and what might be there when I get there. I am a map guy. {Besides, if you can read a map you don't have to ask for directions.}
There are more than chart maps. One of the reasons I am reading the Church Fathers these days is because they were the map makers for Christianity. Many of the things that I struggle with, and others struggle with have already been dealt with by people centuries ago. I might not know about them, and I might be more interested in the latest and newest books, but the pioneers have lots to say to us. Before I ask too many questions or think I have suddenly uncovered some new truth, I check it out, I consult the map. Chances are, it isn't a new idea, a new issue, a new problem, a new anything. Just new to me.
I also confess that I am not always sure where I am going on my spiritual journey. I know I want to be holy, certainly more holy that I am now, but how do I get there. That is a road that have been travel a million and more times before me. So I can follow their steps, learn from their mistakes, and enjoy their insights. I know that I am into knowing stuff, but not so much interested in the feeling stuff. Yet, as I read the Bible I am called to both know and feel. Sometimes in the same verse. So how do I get there? I read the feelers of old, the mystics. I am not a mystic and don't want to be one, but they have something to teach me. So to the mystics I go. I have just found some 4th and 5th century Christians known as the Epyptian Monastics. I am not going to become monastic (i.e., live in a cave with no internet) but those who did have some things to say to me. I am checking out the road they travelled. And who knows, I might just not miss a turn on this spiritual journey.
