Spiraling …

In the previous two posts, I first described the origins of my spiritual journey, it’s movement through a variety of religious expressions and secondly some thoughts on why this path has progressed in a circuitous manner. I now want to put all this into a framework that has emerged as I have mulled things over and talked about these matters with Janet and the closest of my friends.

Far from being a random quest or the product of haphazard wandering, my journey has a definitive starting point. These origin moments function like a black hole–such is its gravitational power to pull subsequent thoughts and actions back toward itself or at least orient them in orbit around its strong attraction. At the same time, the separation velocity from my spiritual beginnings, akin to the violent explosion created by the Big Bang, was great enough to propel my journey beyond the event horizon of no return. The result is the creation of a spiral, an ever widening circle that loops around itself and most importantly the origin singularity.

The spiral image that comes to mind is admittedly simple. Labyrinths also come to mind, but their more complex takes on the spiral extend the metaphor in ways that I have trouble conceptualizing as a framework for my spiritual journey. Still, I can take the framework one more step by visualizing the spiral in three-dimensions:

The spiral still revolves around a point of origin, but as it circles out, the spiral takes the shape of a tunnel. I like this even better because it adds the sense of motion away from the origin as it retains the property of circling around it as a reference point. The 3D effect adds a dimension of movement towards something yet to be revealed–perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel.

These images help me understand that my spiritual journey has a beginning that orients the path but does not completely define it. A multitude of experiences ranging across a plethora of Protestant denominations and a loop through Judaism form the coil that radiates out from and around my Christian point of origin. To me, this means that I will always be a Christian at the core, but that the journey is not straightforward. There are many ways and truths that will continue to bend my progress around my core ideas and beliefs. These experiences are not disconnected from each other, nor repudiations of what has come before. They are one and the same and together make up the tunnel that I know will lead me out the other end and into the destination where God dwells. I don’t think it’s a surprise that the dying report seeing a light. When the time comes, I welcome it.