In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. Luke 2 : 1-5
Journey to Bethlehem, Byzantine mosaic 1320, Chora Church, Istanbul, Turkey
Journeying with uncertainty
During the Spiritual Exercises I spent what seemed an inordinate amount of time imagining myself as Mary refusing to get on the donkey to start the journey to Bethlehem. Part of this was revolt, and so a new take, for me, on Mary. Why should I go just because I am told to by a foreign governing body to do so to suit their administrative deadlines? I’m quite happy here. Will I get into trouble? What do I think of that? Do I see myself as a rule breaker? Is compliance passive and childish? I’m pregnant for goodness sake! Bouncing along on the back of a hard and sweaty animal in the heat of the day - not what the doctor would order! Where on earth might this baby be delivered? There are often plenty of disincentives to start.
Later she would say ‘Be it as you wish’ to another quite different intervention.
What resources have I
other than the emptiness without him of my whole
being, a vacuum he may not abhor?The absence, R S Thomas
What is the motivation for beginning any spiritual journey? The end perhaps: ‘for the joy set before him’ (Hebrews 12:2)? We may even be poked (a Roman census). Often the trigger for a spiritual journey does not seem very spiritual - we misread emptiness and nothingness, silence and smallness. Jesus emptied himself (Philippians 2:7).
We start with what we have. Sometimes that’s emptiness - of compassion, of inspiration, of certainty. This is a resource.
It is morning, afternoon or evening. Begin. Thomas Merton