Magi: Journeying Deeper into the Heart of the World

The spiritual life lends itself to the image of journeying. Early Christians were called "people of the Way," which in itself is a path or journey symbol. Movement on a path signifies growth, becoming, and exploration.

In the narrative of Christ's birth, the Magi represent those who embark on a significant journey, following a mysterious heavenly light, though they begin the quest without knowing the particulars of the pathway, nor what would await them at the destination.

In my experience, a few stars have appeared in the outer world, inviting me to go, to follow, to explore beyond the edges of what I had known. More often, though, the stars arose within me, and I was drawn to follow. In fact, most of the time I would describe the experience as "I HAD to follow" . . . as if I really had little choice . . . as if this prompting was so compelling that I had to honor it.

As I have thought of the Magi in the narrative and the Magi within me, Mary Oliver's "The Journey" has come to mind.

The Journey
Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

[Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, p. 114.]

For me, the poems contains a couple of pivot points. The first comes in the opening lines: "One day you finally knew / what you had to do, and began."

I've had occasional flashes in which I suddenly knew what I had to do . . . "one day . . ." But more often, the sense of "finally knowing what I have to do" has come over time, through life's lengthy wisdom. And that sense usually arises not because of something I read, something I hear from another person, or anything else that comes from the outer world. The impulse to go, to journey, to take the next risky step most always comes from within me.

And yet, I can go long days, even years, knowing what I have to do and still not doing it. The pivot for me in these opening lines is, "and began." She starts. She moves. She takes the first, most difficult step.

And the journey begins. It does not begin as long as the Magi study the star from their rooftops in Persia. It does not begin as long as they are pulling out books from shelves to study the meaning of new constellations. It does not begin as long as they sit in the coffee shop discussing with other wise persons the meaning of new stars and their alignments. The journey commences when they step onto the path . . . when they actually take off in pursuit of they-know-not-what.

"though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice . . ."

I've never met someone who wasn't familiar with the "voices of bad advice" that shout from around us . . . the voices that call our journey folly, that tell us to "get real," that remind us of all the ways were are disappointments, that not-too-subtly express confidence that we'll fail or have to turn back, that try to shame us into getting in line.

But the more insidious voices have always come from within me in a doubting, even accusing tone.
"What if you fail?"
"Can you deal with the uncertainty?"
"Wouldn't you like to know how the story ends?"
"You've never done this before."
"You're crazy!"
"What gives you the right to do this?"

Still, in the landscape of Mary Oliver's poem, you go on, despite the voices. "But you didn't stop. / You knew what you had to do."

"It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones."

You go onward because it is "already late enough." Enough of life has passed. You press forward, even though the storms of the many years have left your path littered, blocked, and cluttered with "branches and stones."

"But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own . . ."

Stars burn through clouds and appear finally, within eyesight, to help navigate the trek. And a new voice arises from within us, but only as we leave the old voices behind. We recognize slowly -- "little by little" -- as we walk away from the old and stale that this new voice is our own, the voice that has always been within, but which we now slowly recognize.

This, for me, is the second pivot point in the poem . . . the leaving behind -- of voices and terrible melancholy -- and the discovery -- of a previously unnoticed voice.

The poem, it seems to me, describes the Magi-journey. I know it describes the journey I have been invited to make.

For Reflection:
Reading poetry, REALLY reading poetry, is a contemplative exercise. You can't rush through a good poem. The poem invites you to slow down, to listen to words, phrases, and lines with your heart. It invites you to make connections. In a really good poem, you will have the sense that "I could have written those words." (This is one reason I've always loved this poem . . . I know Mary Oliver wrote it, but it is also MY poem for the way it describes my own journey.) Good poetry offers the reader many doors through which to enter the landscape of the poem.

So I invite you to read "The Journey" again slowly. Notice words, phrases, and images that speak to you. Sit with it for awhile without trying to make it say anything in particular. Let the poem find you.

Finally, you might consider one or two ways the poem parallels your life experience. What real-life experience do you have of the journey Mary Oliver describes poetically?

Magi: A Spirit of Exploration

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” . . . Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. (Matthew 2:1 – 2, 7 – 12)


In the landscape of the biblical narrative, the Magi were foreigners, outsiders, and strangers. They were auslanders in terms of their people group (the vividly descriptive word "auslander" in German literally means "outside the land") and auslanders in terms of their relationship to biblical faith. By most all historical accounts, the Magi were gentiles and not God-followers. They likely would have been regarded as pagans by the Gospel writers.

Apart from their religious orientation, they were scientists and astrologers, who believed that movements on earth and in the sky signaled some happening of significance. They were observant ("seers") and inquisitive, carefully searching out the earthly world and the celestial world for signs and wonders. They searched, not merely out of curiosity, but because they believed that the entire cosmos was connected and interrelated. In that sense, they were mystics in the best sense of the word, attentive to the world around them, noticing signs and movements that connected with real-world happenings. Something in the sky pointed them to important shifts on earth. They believed in a coherent world, a world held together as a whole, a world in which one thing, happening in one place, had implications and meaning in other parts of the world.

The world is coherent. Paul wrote of Jesus, “In him, all things were created . . . and in him, all things are held together” (Col. 1:15, 16).

Thomas Merton said that a hidden wholeness unifies everything.

So they were trained to be observant, to be watchful, to notice shifts, and then to make connections between the observed world and the more numinous personal world or inner world.

For the Magi, the presence of a new celestial light signaled a shift in their inner world. We don’t know how this happened, or why they came to this particular conclusion about a new star in the sky. We only know that they were compelled to chase it. Something within them drew them to follow the star, though they did not know where the journey would lead, though they did not have all the facts beforehand, though they had no guarantee of the outcome. They set out on a journey, trusting . . . going, yet not knowing where they were going.

They set out on pilgrimage, very much in the spirit of Celtic peregrinatio . . . that is, a journey or quest in which the pilgrim does not know the outcome. The Celtic saints would set out in a coracle, or small dingy, without a destination, trusting that the shore on which they landed -- if they landed at all -- would be the place God wanted them to be.

So the spirit of the Magi is the spirit of exploration, adventure, and wonder, a heart of openness to the mystery of the larger world, and the belief that the entire world is held together as a whole -- events in one place have meaning in all places.

I believe that Magi live within each of us. No matter how well-ordered or structured our lives, there is a something within us that longs to press out to the edges of life, that yearns to go beyond the little that we know and believe, and that truly does hunger for a spiritual journey that can shift life. Something within us wants to believe the world is coherent, that amidst the world's chaos, all things are held together.

For consideration:
Think about your own life experiences . . . even if you have to go back decades, consider a time when you followed an inner impulse -- you followed a star -- even when it seemed irrational or crazy to do so. Why did you take that particular path? Did you find it difficult to trust this path that you could not see? What kept you on that part of the journey?