Becoming a Magi
The Journey of Searching that Promises Light and Belonging
To be human is to search for the Holy. Ever since the Creation, humanity has craved to know what is beyond our own senses—to know for sure what is beyond our own mind. We have used our five senses: sight, touch, smell, feeling and hearing to connect us with the Beyond and the Within. We use our minds to know and this is perhaps one of the reasons we are in such dire trouble.
I think it is true that we are more like Magi than we have ever considered. For in becoming a Magi, we might finally find what it is we are looking for right now.
But, in all our searching, the Magi offer us a journey worth our modern sophistication, technological advances and busy lives. The Magi’s search can become our search. Their great, shining and guiding Star can become our Light for the way. Their pilgrimage together, reminds us that this search and quest is best done together, not alone.
These are the days of the Epiphany—that season in the church’s calendar that many of us have ignored. In our ignorance, we can now confess, we must return to the posture of the Magi—a posture which requires a search; a pilgrimage and a kneeling of confession that there is One worthy of our bended knee and any possible gift we might bring to offering.
Epiphany means the revealing of something very important and significant. Like “I had an epiphany when I went to look at Van Gogh’s art in the museum.” The word Epiphany literally means, “manifestation.” Like a manifistationn of something beyone this world that is truly other worldly. Having an epiphany is the experience of the Magi, when on their journey of seeking, they found what they sought and in their finding, everything changed; everything became more clear.
This is what an epiphany does—one has clearness to take the next step and these next steps are marked by insight, revelation and clarity. We’d be fools to not follow the Light, then wouldn’t we?
The Search of the Magi
As we glean from the Scriptures, there were three “kings”—or wise people who decided on their own to pay attention to their inner hunch; their intuition; their growing awareness that there was, indeed something “more”—Someone more. Their search began when they somehow acknowledged the need to move out and beyond what they already knew in order to become more of their true selves and to find the Truth altogether.
To be wise In this day and age means that we will acknowledge that we are always seekers. In our world today, To be wise is to always posture the heart and mind to learn; to grow in our awareness of self and Spirit. This wisdom informs who we walk through the world and to our Eternal Home. The Magi saw a star—a source of Light to focus on for direction; to light their way forward and to give illumination for their inner journey. Friends, it is certianly OK to be a seeker. Jesus, himself said there was a certain blessing that comes to those who seek. Do you know this blessing yet—the blessing of becoming a seeking Magi?
To become a Magi, is to seek the Light.
Light comes in different forms and shades.
How do you experience “Light” in these dark times we are living in –in these days of division between the secular and the Holy? Perhaps, we can return to an understand that nothing is truly secular and everything contains the Holy.
Beauty brings light. Art brings light. Music brings light. Poetry brings light. Reading brings light. Lectio Divina brings light. Meeting with a soul friend, an Anam Cara, brings light. Sharing a good meal gives light. I always love to think about the English word for “restaurant.” It means, “a place of restoration.” I am always restored in a place where good food, low light, soft music and great company are experienced.
Our souls need restoration and light combined. To seek, even if it’s crumbs left for us in the books and writings of other Magi before our own time bring us a sort of filling and a consolation in knowing that others have sought for what we are not seeking. The light they found is now offered to us.
Mary Oliver was a Magi for me; so was Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard. I’m just more informed; more sensitive to spiritual currents; more nuanced in my own understanding of Light and walk with more freedom than ever before. I have other Magi as well. Some are living. Most are dead but it is their shared light that shines upon my path and beckons me forward, onwward and upward. We really are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, aren’t we?
To become a Magi means to give up certainty.
To give up certainty is to wrestle with our inner aches and longings which go like this:
There has got to be more in life than what I’m experiencing right now. I will become a Magi and search for it.
To embrace more uncertainity means to say something like this: “All the knowledge I have amassed so far is not giving me the inner peace and the soul satisfaction that I somehow know is out there—if only I couldl find it. I must become a Magi to look for it.” If there is resistance to you saying that—ask yourself why and what that resistance really is about?
To go on a pilgrimage means a quest and journey that requires a lightening of the load you carry with you. When you go out and look, you can’t take suitcases filled our books, sermons, doctrines and creeds. You take, as a Magi, only the essentials—only the few things necessary to travel well on the journey. Some things will need to be jettisoned for a lighter load makes the walking not only tolerable but enjoyable.
The Sufi poet, Rumi wrote words that we can take to heart in our own journey and seeking:
Far beyond sermons of right and wrong there's a sunlit field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lazes in such lush grass the world is too full for discussion.
Magi need big inner and outer fields to traverse in the search for more Light; fields which are wide open and room to consider—to become curious and to seek the light together. Fields that do not shame or judge; fields that are safe to relax and where we can be unguarded, unfiltered and unable to edit our own thoughts as we share them. Any journey worth going on requires a vastness where our own sense of lostness, doubts, and fears can be expressed and shared.
In many, many ways, Substack is my field to meet some of you in right here and whenever you are reading my own words and sit with any nugget of wisdom or ray of light I might hold up. You are welcome in this field.
To become a Magi means to risk into the unknown.
The ancient Magi took risk in their leaving; in their going; in their searching; and in all the options of ways they explored. They galvanized courage to stand before political rullers; obey dreams and visions and were willing to change their course—undo their planned route and re-think everything to return home.
There is no journey without risk. There is no pilgrimage which is always safe. As John O’Donohue reminds us in his remarkable poem, “For a New Beginning,” we must be willing to examine “the seduction of safety”. O’Donohue writes brilliantly:
It watched you play with the seduction of safety.
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Gregory of Nyssa, said back in the fourth century, “Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.” Becoming a Magi is not refusing to grow but embracing growth as normal; needed and necessary. Magi’s repent of the seduction of safety and the sin of certainity. They live in a Light that promises freedom and they do not cling to the gray promises of ‘sameness.” They refuse to live like “this” because they are on a compelling mission—a mission that invites them forward, not backward; into the unknown not clinging to the creeds of their Persian faith. They are seekers. Magi are beautiful, free thinkers and perusers of Light. Perhaps this is why in all the Christmas pagents they are the only ones wearing such beautiful fabrics, colors and jewels. Maybe their attire tells us someting of the inner riches of the Magi—of all Magi.
Magi become curious.
Curiosity was rewarded by Moses in the Burning Bush. Curiosity was all apart of the lessons of Jesus to walk by faith and not just sight. Curiosity is the mark of a Magi in all days, seasons and centuries.
Mystery is not the enemy of our faith. How could it be? Mystery in the clouds of the Scriptures and what they meant; mystery in the dreams we have and what they might possibly mean and mystery in options, routes and people we talk with to get direction, perspective and insight. Mystery is such a part of the life of Jesus who sought the solace of nature; experienced Voices from clouds and the miracles of the loaves and fish being every expanded for those who are hungry.
Embracing mystery is one of the ways we lay down our fetish for facts and certainty.
In a poem I wrote, I attempted to give my own invitation to repent of the sin of certainty. I wrote:
Could we dance to curiosity?
Move to the music of all we do not know?
And find the ground beneath our feet in mystery?
Is living the questions too hard to ask?
Cease from all this telling–all this preaching!
This sin of certainty will undo us.
The litany of facts guts me.
To fan the flame of facts will only burn our hearts.
Like many Magi, I too, have worked through my own sin of certainty and to find the ease in sitting with questions and to live the questions. In another poem, I tried to find the words to all my heart’s mutterings in becoming like a Magi in an uncertain world.
I would like a lighter load, please!
I have carried a lot of burdens;
Bags of disappointment, heaps of hurts;
Old dogmas and doctrine, which are too hard to bear.
And now, it is just too much; too heavy.
I am sorting through the baggage.
This must go. You must go.
Do I sound cruel?
To be a Magi means being in the Company of Others
The Magi went together. Embracing the “few” and giving up the “many.” Wisdom is found in circles, not pyramids—by pyramids I mean, top down knowledge given by one person, be it preacher or prophet. We bow before each other’s light and find we have more light together than when we do alone.
The American so called virtue of rugged individualism that shaped our nation’s beginning still remains in our faith traditions and journeys. As we listen to the preacher in Ecclesiastes, we hear, “Two is better than one and a cord of three cords is not easily broken.” We read:
“Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (ECC. 4:9-12)
Our dilemma begins with this question: Who are my three?
Can this become my breath prayer:
O, One who exists in Trinity, give me my own trinity so that I can more fully live!”
We say we believe in community but the statistics reveal we do not practice what we say we believe. We are people of loners where loneliness is more dangerous now, than smoking five packs of cigarettes a day. We have a soulful cancer when we do not embraced a shared life; a shared experience of community and a shared light we can bear for and with one another.
We read in the story of the Epiphany that three people—all who were outsiders of the Jewish faith and custom linked arms, saddled camels and caravaned together in the search. Wisdom is found in a shared experience. Why? Becomes we learn in life that no one person—pastor or political leader has dibs on the journey ahead. Wisdom is found in a circle not at a pinnacle point in one person. As Proverbs reminds us, “Wisdom is found in the company of the wise”—meaning that collective wisdom is better that one voice; one person; one charasimatic preacher and offer us
The wisdom of the Magi is a slow, intentional search.
We give up fast and slick ways to find the truth. We do not attempt to McDonalize spiritual things and water them down nor make it easy to think that ‘tips and techniques’ will work for long in the spiritual life. They do not work. The spiritual life requires a long, arduous journey to become like the child who was laying in the manger—the One that the Magi sought to find. Slow work is good work—maybe the best work there is. No wise Magi ever became a Magi by getting one degree; one diploma and by reading one book. It takes years to become a good Magi.
The Gifts of the Magi
Once the Child was found, we read that the Magi offered extravagant gifts to honor the child; esteem his identity and share the light radiating from a manger. Preachers are so good at making up what these gifts might symbolize. But one thing is for sure…they were symbols that were costly. Costly gifts symbolizing the costly journey and the worthiness of the One who receive such extravagant gifts. What I know is this: Some of the Magi I trek with are pure gold; others offer phenonmnal sensory experiences of hiking, eating and listening to music together. While others help me explore the scent of death and the Other Side of my journey that awaits all Magi.
Oh, for the Light today.
Here are some questions that you might want to sit with in response to my writing:
1) What do you need to seek in the New Year?
2) Whom will you seek as your seeking companions in the New Year? Start with identifying three wise people in your circle now to live out the spiritual life with in the New Year or ask for Light and clarity to find a few traveling companions.
3) What sin of certainty do you need to repent of to become a spiritual seeker no matter and however you identify yourself right now? (I mean giving up labels, being quite in the saying of creeds where you actually don’t agree anymore or need to hold in question) and re-thinking mystery and the role of mystery in your own life and journey now?
What or whom do you need to let of in order to seek what it is you are wanting?
So, here is my new beautiful poem. Raw and early it is to share but I’ll share it here anyway. I am always SEEKING to improve my poems. I’ve included a beautiful piece of art that I can’t find the source of—so help me if you can.
Please, please do me a big favor… leave a comment as I’d love your thought on the prose or poem—or both. And please do consider upgrading your Substack subscription “paid subscriber” as this is the one and sure way to support me in my new endeavors to create poems for other Magi in the making.
What line in the poem strikes you as something you want to linger with?
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