Throwing Away the Maps

Finding Direction for our Future

Photo by Majestic Lukas on Unsplash

“It’s time for the pilgrim in me to travel in the dark.”

 These are the words that speak truth to me these days.  For quite some time, I have felt the maps I have been handed were not reliable guides anymore. It’s not that they led me to wrong places.

It is that the place where I am currently find myself, is clearly not on the map anymore. I need a new map. The old maps are working for me anymore.

When you hike in the forest, you find a trail and at the beginning of the trail, you see a map, which lays out the journey you’re going to hike. You see the words, “You are here.”  And those three words tell you exactly where you are. Then you notice the arrows…the clear markers that keep you on the trail. You follow them with an assurance and trust that you will get back to your car; back to the place you really need and want to be.

People find that sort of map when they identify themselves as a Evangelical, Republican or Democrat, Catholic or Protestant. Those maps—those arrows and those trails define the journey for many of us.

Even the person checking me in at my doctor’s office yesterday asked me several map kind of questions. “Answer “yes” or “no” was how she first greeted me when I sat down in the doctor’s office— it was a sort of 60 second soul triage.

“Are you a person of faith: yes or no?”

  Do you have joy in your life— yes or no?

 I needed some gray space . I needed to say, if I was to answer honestly—" Some days, I have joy. Some days, I live in grief. Some days I am “in-between”.  But “in-between” wasn’t on her check list. She had no category for my wanting to unpack what it was she really asking. She didn’t have the time either.

Yes/no questions simply do not work for me. These days, such questions shut me down. I’m uncomfortable. And I can’t keep responding with “It’s complicated” when I’m asked what I think this or that. That doesn’t seem to satisfy the one asking questions about my health or my politics.

The map many people offer me these days leave me feeling more lost than found. Does that make sense to you? It does to me. The old maps are not working for me anymore.

I mean, seriously, in this day of mis-information, how do we even know we can trust maps any more? Maybe National Geographic, the US Forest Service and our GPS is all wrong. The conspiracists maps have never worked for me.

I cannot identify where I am as clearly as I use to by saying, “I’m this… or I’m that…”  I don’t speak in such binary terms any longer.  By that I mean, my old maps spoke in certain terms.  You’re either right or you’re wrong.  You’re in or you’re out.  There is a succinct map that showed one way of thinking… one way of being right. 

What happened to me is that my maps got left out in the rain and the print smeared making it difficult to really see one’s way through this forest that I found myself in.

As I began to put my old maps away and on my many shelf of map making books I have collected, I found myself, and perhaps you have also found yourself, feeling befuddled—a bit lost—looking for the well-worn path to tred. 

Then I found Joyce Rupp’s remarkable poem, “Old Maps No Longer Work.”  I felt invited to start reading the stars—like the ancients did to find their way across vast oceans of unknowing and to give them a sense of leaving the old world and old ways in search of something less certain—less black and white—more of mystery than set in concrete.

Twenty five years ago, I read a book which began to change everything for me. It was a book that described predictable stages and phases of the spiritual life.  It was  a book that walks one through the seasons of faith and how faith changes—or ought to change to be healthy, feel alive and feel malleable to a changing world.  In this book the authors write:

“Many people experience a measure of success and satisfaction in their lives or professions. Then over a period of time, they slowly become disillusioned with that success. Some begin to wonder if there is not something more, a deeper meaning, for their lives. They seek greater fulfillment, more balance or, perhaps something beyond themselves. Quite self-sufficient, they often fail to recognize that the struggle may not be simply vocational, but at its core, spiritual. The quest for meaning, balance, and wholeness frequently expresses a need for a relationship with Someone beyond ourselves to give orientation, direction, and meaning to our lives.”

–      from The Critical Journey, by Janet O. Hagberg and Robert A. Guelich

It’s their last sentence that seemed to grab my jugular vein inside my heart—freeing me of spiritual plaque and a build up of grit and grim that somehow attached itself to my most vital organ—my heart.  It’s when the authors said this—that I felt the scalpel of the Almighty Heart Surgeon, namely the Creator God, come and begin to do a deep cleaning of my soul:

The quest for meaning, balance, and wholeness frequently expresses a need for a relationship with Someone beyond ourselves to give orientation, direction, and meaning to our lives.

The authors are describing how someone begins to find a new map to find their way forward.  They describe a relationship—an experience that we awaken to that begins to feel like a map is being unfolded—a map that we can trust—a map we can use with reliability and a map that others have trekked deep into the spiritual world to navigate their way home.

It is a map that Joyce Rupp so eloquently describes in her revelatory poem that I want to offer you to read now. The English word, “revelation” literaly means, “removing the veil”—removing of the veil so that one can see more clearly. 

That’s pretty much what I want… a removing of a political veil; removing a denominational veil; removing of an ecclesiastical veil; and a removing of anything interfering with my vision of moving through the dark woods that many of us are finding ourselves in at the precise moment in time.

It feels more like wilderness, than home.

It feels unknown.

It feels uncomfortable.

It feels unsure.

It must be a path of faith—not certainty that I now trek.  Richard Rohr reminds us that “the opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certitude.” It’s a very good statement to remember—even memorize. It is the map of certitude that isn’t going to work well these days in our complex, big old world. We’re going to need a new map.

Read Joyce Rupp’s poem now and see where it takes you. See how your body feels as you read her poem. Does her poem make you uncomfortable in your gut? Nervous in your mind; aching in your heart. Be aware of what you’re feeling as you dive into the poem.

Let me just say it one more time: Awareness is mapmaking.

It is not “de-construction” to speak in this way. It is life. It is normal life to give up maps that do not work anymore. It’s just life.

One more thing, as you read Joyce Rupp’s poem, don’t mis her use of “midlife soul” because that’s about the mark in the journy when many of us become aware that the old maps don’t work for us any more. It’s an important line in her poem and for your new map making adventure.

Since I am beyond “mid life” there really is no excuse to hang on to maps like that anymore. And this is the whole point of made in Janet Hageberg and Robert Guelich’s ground breaking book, The Critical Journey. (The book is out of print but get one if you can. Find one. Get your library to get this book and read it.) The map, they say, leads to love. I like that destination. Who can argue with love? Well, I know. I know. “Some people would argue with a sign post”, as I remember my Dad telling my Mom in their fights when I was a child.

I’m not going to argue with love. It is for me, about the only map that makes sense anymore.

Old Maps Don't Work Anymore

by Joyce Rupp



I keep pulling it out –
the old map of my inner path
I squint closely at it,
trying to see some hidden road
that maybe I’ve missed,
but there’s nothing there now
except some well-travelled paths.
they have seen my footsteps often,
held my laughter, caught my tears.

I keep going over the old map
but now the roads lead nowhere,
a meaningless wilderness
where life is dull and futile.

“toss away the old map,” she says
“you must be kidding!” I reply.
she looks at me with Sarah eyes
and repeats “toss it away.
It’s of no use where you’re going.”

“I have to have a map!” I cry,
“even if it takes me nowhere.
I can’t be without direction,”

“but you are without direction,”
she says, “so why not let go, be free?”

so there I am – tossing away the old map,
sadly fearfully, putting it behind me.
“whatever will I do?” wails my security
“trust me” says my midlife soul.
no map, no specific directions,
no “this way ahead” or “take a left”.
how will l know where to go?
how will I find my way? no map!
but then my midlife soul whispers

“there was a time before maps
when pilgrims traveled by the stars.”

It is time for the pilgrim in me
to travel in the dark,
to learn to read the stars
that shine in my soul.

I will walk deeper
into the dark of my night.
I will wait for the stars.
trust their guidance.
and let their light be enough for me.

Let me ask you a question?

Is it time to read the stars that shine in your soul? What would that look like for you?