Going a different way

I have been re-reading The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by Scott Peck, because my Saturday walking friend DH kept talking about it. It's something that I needed to re-read and made me more open to receiving the message at church yesterday. Scott Peck wrote a lot about growing in love by taking risks.

Yesterday (after all, it was Epiphany Sunday!) our interim priest Sheridan spoke about the gospel story (Matthew 2:1-12) of the Magi visiting Herod and then the child Jesus. First off, I was hit by the concept that knowledge, which I love to learn, does not guarantee that one will move to go for a life-changing event. The scribes whom Herod consulted had vast arrays of scrolls and knowledge so that they could proclaim where the child would be. . . . However, they were so caught up in their worlds of learning that they merely went back to their "books" and did not go anywhere at all. Familiarity defined their reality.

In contrast, the magi kept looking, even though the majestic trappings of a king were not in the little house where Mary and Jesus were. Still, "they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. " (Mt. 2:11) They looked beyond the surface reality to see the Holy beneath or breaking through.

The next verse says "And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road." They went home by a different road. They risked going on an unfamiliar path.

How often do we go "home" by an unknown way? Sheridan advised us not to hold too fast to the path we know and that with imagination, trust, and risk, we need to go home by a different road.

The familiarity of this story and my knowledge of the historical context and literary criticism, etc. has often made me dismiss the story as sweet but untrue. This way of interpreting the magi's decision to go another way brought much more meaning to me. Also, I can see that I can easily get stuck in my knowledge, like Herod's scribes did! Now I can view the story as TRUE but not factual, rather than sweet and silly.

Too often I choose to stick with the familiar, which means I am living out the 12 step aphorism that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results." In the same old pattern will I even notice anything new? Could I see the glimpse of God if I'm in my regular "carpeted rut?"

All this helped me yesterday to take the risk of going over to Len's house after he died, wanting to give his wife a hug. This is something I worried and struggled over, as I was brought up "not to bother" or "intrude" upon people. It has been a long road to learn to follow nudges and trust that reaching out is the right thing to do. No one answered the doorbell, but I left a note and felt that I had "gone home a different way."