Scripture: Proverbs 9:1-6 (NRSV)
Wisdom has built her house, treat she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, site she has mixed her wine, malady she has also set her table. She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!”  To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

Thought for the Day: We often think of a spiritual journey as a somewhat solitary affair, but really, we are always in relationship with others as we work our way back to God. We’ll meet people on the road as we travel, and hopefully their ideas and faith help us develop our ideas and faith. And always, we are in relationship with God.

I think of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, about a group of pilgrims sharing stories as they make a literal spiritual journey to Canterbury. The stories the characters tell are a sometimes scathing political commentary on England and the church at the end of the 14^th century. In the telling of the tales though, the pilgrims learn about each other, and their stories inform each other’s journeys in deep and profound ways. They gain wisdom from each other, they break bread with each other, and they tolerate each other even though they have wildly different ideas about life and how it should be lived.

Our lives are not lived in a vacuum. In my opinion, the key to a successful spiritual journey is to remain open minded; to realize you don’t have all the answers, and never will. It requires answering Wisdom’s call and understanding that there are no wrong turns on the spiritual path, only opportunities to understand our relationship with each other, and the Infinite Divine, more intimately and respectfully.

Prayer: May my mind and soul always remain open to new revelation, new ideas, and new roads that lead to you, my Sustenance, my Creative Source, my Eternal Wisdom. Amen.