Imaging the Sacred: Good Friday Journey 1

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain

where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that

I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am

actually doing so.

...

I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the

shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and

You will never leave me to face my perils alone."

Thomas Merton,

Thoughts in Solitude

Reading Thomas Merton's prayer reminded me of the journey Kim and I took on Good Friday afternoon on April 6, 2012. It was the most perilous drive I've done. Thomas Merton also traveled the same road to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in 1968. His travel then would have been even more treacherous than the one we took. I imagine him writing the prayer above as he reflected on his journey to the Monastery.

Glenn Dixon, a Canadian linguist, writes that in Aymara, a language spoken by about two million people in southern Bolivia and Peru, the past is spoken of as being in front and the future is thought to be behind. "We already know the past, we have lived it, and therefore we see it in front of us. It's in full view. The future, though, is unknown. it can't be seen and therefore is behind us, unseen and unknown." (Pilgrim in the Place of Words, pp. 212-4) I share the following images of the journey as I "look front" and experience once again what I saw on that day.

There are times in life when we don't want to "look front." Thomas Merton's prayer reminds me that our faith journey is to look front knowing that God has never left us and will never leave us to face our perils alone.

What do you see as you "look front"?

Imagine a sunny day driving in a lonely desert not really knowing for certain where or how your journey will end. The photos I took are taken from a driver's seat. So if you don't see much at the bottom of an image, it is because there was nothing much between the car tires and the precipice!