BEGINNINGS

“The beauty of our path is that we actually don’t know where we are going.” -- Thomas Hübl

Beginning is a big word in our culture. It comes with a lot of pressure. We are expected to be a hero of sorts: Clear about where we are going and courageous enough to get there on our own.

The beautiful life, the enviable journey, is the one that is mapped out from the start and never veers off track.

Even the wise and widely-loved, Mary Oliver, seems to get into this game of bold and brave beginnings. “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?,” she asks. It’s a question that can sometimes feel more intimidating than invitational.

But what if we began our journeys differently? What if we allowed ourselves to start off with humility, not heroism? With our doubts rather than our certainty? What if it was ok for us to say out loud: “I’m not sure where I’m going? And I’m not sure I can get there on my own?”

John O’Donohue, the beloved Irish poet and philosopher, suggests one answer to that. He writes,

“Beginnings often frighten us because they seem like lonely voyages into the unknown. Yet, in truth, no beginning is empty or isolated. We seem to think that beginning is a setting out from a lonely point along some line of direction into the unknown. This is not the case. Shelter and energy come alive when a beginning is embraced… We are never as alone in our beginnings as it might seem at the time. A beginning is ultimately an invitation to open towards the gifts and growth that are stored up for us.”

In other words, if we are brave enough to own our fear and need at the start of a journey, then we make space to experience that journey as our friend.

Another bard puts it this way, “Before you begin the journey, you own the journey. Once you have begun, the journey owns you.” And by “owns you,” what is meant is that the journey has you. The journey suddenly becomes a companion, not a mountain to conquer. In a sense, it comes alive and offers its help. Our willingness to begin with our fear and uncertainty, enables us to hear the path say, “I will not let you fall. I will not let you go.”

This sense of being helped by the journey itself, in turn, opens space for us to imagine (or is it remember?) another possibility: that our most sacred journeys begin with a question, not a destination.

This is fundamentally different from our culture’s “keep your eyes on the prize” advice. This is an orientation that believes the journey is about wholeness and unfolding, not striving and winning.

It is what many have called the orientation of the soul.
It is an orientation that proclaims that the way forward is found by looking within.
It is an orientation that says the first step is not about figuring out the destination but discerning the question stirring somewhere deep. The question that somehow knows us before we know it.
The question that seeks us as much as we seek it.

It is an orientation that urges us to put down the status-soaked questions of: How can I get ahead? How do I stay on top? How can I prove my worth?

Instead it invites us to listen for spirit-filled questions such as: What is home? How can I be safe? How can I find me again? Who is my most important audience? Is the voice I’ve been listening to really my own? Where does my deep gladness intersect with the deep needs of the world?

Your question will, of course, be unique to you.

And if you listen for it, and begin with it, there is no way you can go off course.