On Journeying…

Posted on August 16, 2020 | Posted by Mary Stoneback

There’s an old saying that, “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” Now, when I was a kid growing up in Iowa, we used to drive to Colorado for summer vacation. And, I know I’m going to take some heat from the Nebraska folks here (pun intended), but when we drove to Colorado, it was about the destination. I just wanted to get through blazing hot western Iowa, Nebraska, and eastern Colorado as quickly as possible to get to the cool, forested mountains. It was not about the journey.

So, when folks talk about a faith journey, it makes me anxious. Just tell me what to do so I can draw a straight line from here to…wait, where? Nirvana? Self-actualization? Total inner peace? What is the
destination? Is it on Google Maps? And how do we know when we get there? Was David Byrne right?

This last week, our confirmands have made an ‘affirmation of faith’. Is that a sort of destination? Or a milestone? Or a mile marker? I remember that I didn’t really feel any different after my confirmation. I think sometimes these events don’t take on meaning until years later. Now I realize that what seemed like the end of a journey was really just the beginning. Rather than answering all my questions about faith, it just made me want to understand more about my relationship with God by looking more carefully at all the people in the Bible and what their relationships with God looked like. Some of their relationships turned out to be as crazy as mine…which, you know, made me feel a lot better about myself.

So, I’m still not big on journeys. Clearly, I have a lot more learning to do. It’s a journey to learn to accept the fact that it’s a journey. Uff da.

By Dennis Bagenstos, ALC Online Contributor