Pilgrim's Progress for Mind, Body & Soul

There seem to be different kinds of pilgrims. The three Magi were the kind that waited until various signs were in place before they started out. They needed certainty first. They also had a clear idea of what they expected to find when they arrived at a no-doubt-about-it destination— a glowing and beatific Messenger of the Divine. Their story appears to have a neat and tidy beginning, middle and end, complete with lovely depictions and rhyming hymns. Yet we know that appearances are often misleading, and the middle is never tidy.

For instance, things get ghastly when the star leads the three to King Herod, who reacts to their private debrief of messianic prophecies with an order of infanticide in the city of Bethlehem. These wise men were even planning to return to Herod after finding the Baby, but instead, heeded a brick-falling-on-the-head warning in a dream to steer clear. Some guiding star. I’m glad their slumbering, receptive bodies were as reliable as a celestial body. 

Even if this frightful part of the story could be explained away with several contortions of logic, what purpose does it serve as an element of a pilgrimage? I believe it serves as a general reminder that even when an action seems like a solution with purpose and a predicted outcome, there are many forces and wills at work, some seen and fortuitous and some unseen and unsavory. Calendars, maps, interpretations and forecasts can be wrong.

The Three Kings by bmosig.jpg

Here is also a reminder that desperate acts of destruction, on the part of Herod and the soldiers, cannot guarantee a desired result. By his parents’ flight to Egypt, the messiah begins his own pilgrimage toward bodily salvation. Even the Savior must be saved, from people and by people. So where does that leave the rest of us? We're not often caught up in a cosmic religious drama between forces of good and evil that include signs and wonders. We usually have just our own small dramas with small obscure signs and little to wonder at. And what if we don't even recognize that we are on a pilgrimage because we feel caught in one of those traffic roundabouts when people forget to yield? 

One way we can know where we’re trying to go and what we’re trying to do is to simply observe our movements. Are we periodically making a break or a run for it, even if— unlike the Magi—we don’t yet know why we're going nor what will be there when we arrive? Do we just keep leaving or feeling compelled to leave a central point, but the radius is the only thing that changes? The break isn’t made and the run is halted. Do we just keep tilting but never quite falling completely out of time and space, only to be thrown back in it?

If this is the case, then the stagnant central point is the problem and the impulse to flee it is actually a supreme act of survival toward completing our full course on earth. It’s important to recognize this, because whatever destruction we run toward may not be what we want at all. If the primary urge to live and live fully keeps on being replaced by unwanted secondary and tertiary gains, then there isn’t much point in chasing after flickering exit signs. Also, we may not want to break from every aspect of the central point. All we know is that nothing is working, we’re stuck in a circle around a drain, and efforts to recruit people for help aren’t effective. There’s a reason why hell is described as a funnel of cantos. The chaotic reality of the territory never changes and the descent becomes increasingly constricted and frozen.

Map of Hell by Sandro Botticelli. The blue semi-sphere at the bottom is where Satan is bound in ice as a prisoner and not a ruler.

If there is one thing that I have learned about the circumference of the spirit, it is that an expansion of the spirit can’t happen without the cooperation of the body. The body will move with or against a mental plan every single time until it senses that the mind has come into agreement with the spirit. The spirit keeps insisting that its sacred central point is both within and therefore everywhere, and it wants our mind to have our body act accordingly. If that sounds like transcendental “woo”, I assure you it couldn’t possibly be any more grounded in material and measurable results. 

So here is a tale of one pilgrim’s progress: in 2006, I met an acquaintance who told me of a time in his life when he was extremely ill as part of a local viral outbreak. His doctors didn’t know why he wasn’t getting better, and they had little help or hope to offer. Inexplicably, one of these “healers” found it necessary to tell him that he was at the point where some of his other patients had committed suicide. So with the inception of this idea planted firmly in his guilt-racked mind, he felt a sort of permission, and perhaps even an obligation, to follow through with this idea of bringing about his own end. Hadn’t others done this before him? His central point was now attached to this doctor’s words and how others had acted. As if a dark star had risen, he now had certainty and a destination.

He was so sick that he could barely walk, but his mind forced his body into his truck. The body complied. His mind had a plan for how to end the body, and his body complied by gathering up the paraphernalia of the plan. His mind said, “I must leave here,” and the body said, “Sure, okay, I’m with you, let’s go.” The body agreed that he needed to get out from where he was stuck. He drove to a remote area in the wilderness, when normally he was too exhausted to drive into town. His body didn’t put up a fight. He crawled outside of his truck, depleted, to rest and to prepare himself for what his mind had decided to do. And then his story, as if by magic, jumps up and out from what sounds like a carousel of despair, featuring many go-rounds of doctors, frustrated family, and buried hopes.

At the part of the story when his body is lying on the ground, seemingly spent, he says, “Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I wanted to kill myself anymore.” The body spoke to the other parts of his splintered being and caught their attention. It wasn’t his mind that said, “I don’t feel”, it was his body that said “I don’t feel”; the same body that was suffering the excruciating symptoms only hours before. He didn’t feel his usual state of wired but exhausted, anxious, inflamed, winded, confused, despairing and limp. His illness didn’t disappear, but the symptoms of it diminished enough so that his mind was able to hear his body assert, “I don’t feel like carrying out your plan.” The body resisted a calamitous end to this pilgrimage, changed his mind, and his spirit came knocking. The Three Magi were back together.

Gradually, his mind, in this remote terrain, was clear enough to try a new tack in service of his well-being. He decided to notice and then assess what was present or not present in his current environment versus the environment he had just left. He began to let his body advise him that brief shots of anxiety and depression were his allies, communicating that he was near something toxic and unhealthy to him. He didn’t know which way to go in this unchartered territory, but he began to rely further on his intuition, rather than a limited understanding, toward the good and away from the bad. “Good and bad” for him were not choices regarding morality; they were directions away from self-destruction and toward survival; away from situations that inflamed his suffering and stagnation; toward situations that cooled down his symptoms and allowed him to function with increasing levels of determination. 

While making allowances that various sensations might be hard to interpret, he nevertheless honed the skill of perception. Being highly perceptive meant that he learned how to never miss a trick. But can we be tricked by our own imagination? All the time. Can other people trick us? King Herod tried to fool the wise men with all of his military might. However, an image of reality is not the same as an experience of it. There is nothing imaginary about someone progressing from crawling on the floor of their apartment, desperately sick, to climbing a mountain six months later. That is the definition of materially and measurably better. 

Illustration by John Muir. Ex Libris
getting out of the stories that have been written for us

When imagination fails us, perceptions can kick in and offer a clue. This devastated man’s image of himself on a mountaintop didn’t exist in his mind while he drove his truck to what he believed would be his doom. He had the opposite of encouragement from the pessimistic doctor. He endured social persecution from those who couldn’t tolerate suffering people. He didn’t use daily visualization and affirmations or tightly controlled thoughts to short-circuit his way out with positivism. Wouldn’t it be nice if he had? Because then we could be relieved that all we need is imagination, high-fives, and deep breathing. 

If that sounds counterproductive to all we've been taught, then consider which is more valuable to life and limb— to hopefully believe that a bomb is not ticking, or to rightfully perceive that a bomb is ticking? If I can’t perceive, then I can only believe, and my beliefs haven’t always been correct. My perceptions aren’t fully informed with incontrovertible evidence either, but they offer me something beyond false beliefs I cling to, or a paid subscription to someone else’s point of view. My perceptions can tell me what I truly value instead of what someone else tells me I should value. I can think of many times when my imagination scared the wits out of me, but I can’t think of a time when the full-body knowledge of intuition hasn’t brought their return. My center can hold.

Where does the spirit come in, for this severely tested man, whose center was being pulled between mind and body? I imagine that it came in moments of joy, acceptance, and knowledge that he was still on earth because earth hadn’t rejected him. I imagine it came in waves of assurance that although his mind and body weren’t perfect meters of “the good”, they were more trustworthy than he had previously given them credit for.

"This hill though high I covent ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way of life lies here,
Come, pluck up heart; let's neither faint nor fear."
–John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

The modern pilgrim of this story is a living example of someone who purposely meant to lose his whole world so that he could gain his soul. Yet, the canny body was looking out for his soul, waiting for its chance, until his mind could follow; to keep them all in one piece until death would no longer be untimely. By regaining his soul, he found his place in the world. Not my place, not your place, but his own. He also lost a great deal in the process, but many of those losses he had intended to let go of, anyway.

That was over thirty years ago, and he’s literally still climbing mountains. And yet, he doesn’t always live on the mountain. He also never completely abandons the former central point of where he lived and where he fell so ill. He just limits his time there until he gets the warning signals that he’s losing altitude and a crash is coming that will burn those around him. Some of his family and friends (not all) love him enough to accept his limitations, rather than demand an unattainable perfection that suits them. 

By keeping his body in the clear air, he trained his mind how to perceive those very helpful limits, so that healthy interactions and relationships are even possible. The body is usually heard the most clearly in the wilderness— the mountain top, the deep forest, the deserted beach, the briny waves, away from the loud kudzu minds of others. In this state of aloneness, the person stops disappearing into oblivion and the true self emerges. This state of a chosen and conscious be-wilderment is the opposite of isolation in a dark room with racing thoughts and bad dreams, sensitive to light and voices. This state of retreat brings us back to our senses that can feel pleasure alongside of pain.

It has been ten years since I first heard his story, and it has been one of the most compelling and instructive in my own progress that I have had the privilege to hear. When I am in the wilderness, I can feel the Magi’s whispering guidance. But I leave off with a caveat: the wilderness is wild, and like any untamed thing, it promises us nothing and owes us nothing.

Roman fresco of The Three Graces from Pompeii