A Pathless Path

I was recently intrigued by an excerpt of a book - The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd. I read it a few days ago. The idea of a Pathless Path sounds so confusing at best. How can a path be pathless? I asked myself. Either there is a path or there is none, so how can a path be pathless? But the more I engaged with the idea of a Pathless Path to understand what it meant, the more I became fascinated with it.

Pathless Path is an ancient idea that says each of us is on a path, mostly a familiar path. That path may have been carved for us by our parents, schools, mentors, circumstances, or by our own effort. But whatever that familiar path may be, we sometimes experience an awakening, a jolt, a quake, or something similar. For some, including me, it may be a spiritual awakening.

When we experience the awakening, we do not abandon everything about the familiar path we are on as we carve out our own new path. The Pathless Path is the new path that we choose. We may not know where that path will lead us, but we choose that new Pathless Path with the hope that its trajectory leads us to a new life that honors God.

Your Pathless Path is a path that no one has traveled on before - just you. No one has been on that path before, just you. You make the path as you grow. That path becomes uniquely yours.

Two examples that I’d like to highlight are the lives of Moses and Paul. Moses was a fugitive from Egypt who was tending the herd of Jethro, his father-in-law, on the mountaintop when he had an epiphany. The mountaintop is a sacred place, a holy place where we encounter the divine. What made this mountaintop epiphany all the more special for Moses was the sight of a burning bush that wasn’t consumed by the fire.

His curiosity got the best of him, and as he approached the spectacle, he heard a voice. And then, an answer to his question: "Who are you? What is your name?" Moses assumed that the God who revealed the self to him could have a name like everything else that he knew. He assumed that God was a being who could be categorized with a name. And with that name, this God could be compared with any other thing or being.

More to the point, if God is a being with a name, then it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to demand evidence to support the belief in this being (God) who has a name like you and me.

The response “I AM WHO I AM” to the question “What is your name?” wasn’t what Moses was expecting. What God meant by God’s answer is I AM prior to human thought and language. I AM prior to being. I AM that upon which everything else depends. I AM WHO I AM.

This response opened the door for Moses to begin to view the God of his ancestors in a completely different way. This revelation led him to chart a different path - a Pathless Path from the familiar path as a fugitive and a shepherd of his father-in-law.

Moses’ Pathless Path led him back to the very place and people from whom he fled. He charted a new path, and that path led to the emancipation of the people of Israel from slavery.

Paul was on a familiar path. He would describe himself with these words in Philippians:

“If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.”

The familiar path was so enthralling for Paul that his commitment and devotion to it meant that he didn’t mind witnessing Stephen being stoned to death or traveling long distances to persecute the people of the Way (Christians).

It was on one of such trips that he also had an epiphany - a spiritual awakening. This awakening was so intense and transformational for Paul that he changed course. Paul carved for himself a different path, a Pathless Path, which meant abandoning some of what he had come to know and believe for a new adventure with the God of Jesus Christ, whom he had been persecuting.

Paul’s Pathless Path led him to travel to the ends of the known world with the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ. His suffering. His travels. His writings. His faith. Everything that Paul did after his spiritual awakening tells of a man who found a new path - a Pathless Path.

I don’t think a Pathless Path calls for a complete abandonment of all we have come to know about ourselves and the familiar path we find ourselves on. It is a path about a new phase of life, grounded in an old experience yet drawn toward a new direction of self-exploration and a response to God’s divine invitation. To walk that path means committing oneself to a life uniquely meant for you. You are the one who is making this new path for yourself.

I believe that a  is initiated, instigated, or generated by some form of an awakening, which could be spiritual. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as Moses's and Paul's. It can be experienced in any number of ways through daily life and work, through prayer, during kitchen chores like Brother Lawrence, in the garden, while walking or running on the trail, when simply observing nature, at work, or in many varied ways.

It can also be incremental, with each new experience building upon a previous one. This is all to say that each of us experiences that moment of awakening, that aha moment. We simply haven’t paid attention to those holy moments.

The truth is, it is only those who acknowledge their experience of an awakening, those for whom each moment can be holy, who can choose a Pathless Path. And that path is unique to each person because each is expected to make that path on their own.

Someone once said that the only guarantee that tomorrow will be better than today is that we are growing right now. You and I can only grow if we acknowledge each moment as not only being holy, but that each moment offers us an opportunity to build on our spiritual depth, and to choose a new path, a different path, a Pathless Path.

I believe that nothing honors our relationship with God more than a spiritually awakened soul on a Pathless Path.



Blessed Summer, 

Manny+