Category: Unknown Pilgrimage 2020

It has been a bit since I last wrote about this year of pilgrimage. I recently completed my second retreat of the year. It was a three day silent Ignatian retreat. The retreat leader was from the Eastern Church and brought to the conferences a rich display of icons. In this setting an icon is a piece of religious art (images) that is written by on iconographer. They are said to be written because the purpose of the icon is to tell a story that helps draw one closer to God.

The icon above is call “The Trinity” and depicts God (on the left), Jesus (in the middle), and the Spirit (on the right). There is a lot to the story that is written in this image, but the thing that I want to focus on is the invitation into the unknown that the icon invokes. The way the Trinity is laid out presents to the view an invitation to join God, Jesus, and Spirit at the table. Imagine stepping into the image and joining these three at the table. What might that conversation be like? What do you imagine they might invite you to do? All it takes is a willingness to step into the unknown.

Is there anything stopping you from taking your place at the table? How would joining the three at the table deepen your relationship with God? Sit with this image for a while and imagine.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you need someone to help you to the table.

Wonderment. Isn’t that an interesting word. I first came across this word a couple of years ago, and it has stuck with me. Wonderment is defined as awed admiration, curiosity, or wonder. If you think about it, wonderment is about exploring the unknown.

I took a personal day to sit in my hermitage (two space heaters going to keep warm on this cold Minnesota winter day [-11 this morning]) and see what God was inviting me to ponder. The topic that came into focus for me was “intimacy with God.” I have been invited again into a state of wonderment about nurturing and growing my deep, rich, intimate relationship with God.

In his book The Naked Now, Richard Rohr says that it is in loving something that we can truly know the object of that love. For me, this is what wonderment is about, holding God in awed admiration, yet being curious as to what new thing I will learn about him. After all, this is the purpose of the pilgrimage I’m on, embracing the unknown to make it known.

26 January 2020

Last weekend I had the opportunity to do some diving off the coast of California near San Diego. These dives were the deepest dives I had ever done. The deepest point was 84 feet underwater. I also got to dive in a kelp forest which was a mystical experience. My three deep dives all had one thing in common, I had to adventure into the unknown.

On these deep dives we would drop down to the ocean floor at depths of 25-60 feet and swim out to the edge of the “shallow” sea floor. Approaching the edge was a surreal experience. I would be swimming along just a foot or two off the bottom looking ahead to see where the sea floor just dropped to depths of 100’s of feet below the surface. The point of this drop off was very distinct. As I swam over the edge I was looking into the unknown. I could no longer see the ocean floor, I was just soaring over the unknown, like a bird flying over the ground, but I couldn’t see the ground. At this point I had a choice to make, I could remain hovering over the unknown or I could embrace the unknown and descend down into it. I chose the later and dropped another 10, 15, 20, 25 feet into the unknown and was rewarded with the sights of sea urchins, crabs, lobster, and fishes. I would have gone deeper but I have limits to how deep I can dive. 

As we look into the unknown we have two choices, we can gaze at it from a safe distance or we can embrace it and enter into it. If we choose to enter into the unknown we need to be aware that there may be some risks or dangers that we may encounter. We need to be aware of what is happening around us. On my dive I was constantly checking my dive computer to see my depth, how much air I had left, and my no decompensation time (to prevent dangerous levels of nitrogen for accumulating in my body). 

God is often inviting us into the unknown. The unknown is a place where personal and spiritual transformation happens. It is a place where our faith and trust in God is tested and strengthened. The unknown is a place that may scare us, but by leaning into God and those around us we can enter into it and see what God has for us.

At the end of last year, God invited me into the unknown pilgrimage, a time to journey with Him into the unknown. A couple of weeks ago the place where I work had a large round to layoffs, we knew they were coming since last fall, but the unknown was what effect would this have on me. The team I work on took a significant hit with the results being a lot of the work we do left unaccounted for. This created a lot of unknowns not only for workload but for me personally. 

I am left with the question of why I wasn’t let go. I really believed that I would be let go and that this would be one of the unknowns that I would be working through this year. Rather, one of my unknowns is why am I still here. I need to embrace this unknown and move forward to see what God has in store for me.

This is the thing about the unknown, you don’t know when you will encounter it or what I actually looks like until you are on the edge of the know and the unknown. Is there an unknown you are currently facing? What does it look like? Are you looking at the unknown from afar or are you ready to embrace it?

A couple of tips. First, don’t embrace the unknown on your own. Invite God to enter into the unknown with you. Second, don’t enter the unknown alone. On all my dives I hired a dive guide to go with me. My guide was someone who have been into these unknown places before and was a second set of eyes to help through it. Finally, take it slow. Take the time to look into the cracks and crevices of the unknown to discover what is there. 

Let me know if you have any questions or need someone to embrace the unknown with.