I’m going to tell you a story…

…it’s entirely true. Not one single part of it is made up, elaborated, exaggerated or false.

I always felt that it was an experience that was deeply personal, private and meant only for me. But the older I become, the more I wonder about such things. I wonder if we’re meant to share everything that touches us or moves us deeply, no matter how apparently trivial it may seem on the surface, and not worrying or caring how it might be perceived, received, or interpreted by others.

I think it’s a special kind of relaxation, a gradual letting go, that probably comes with age. We become more aware of everything that we’ve lived, everything we’ve survived, everything that didn’t turn out quite the way we’d thought, or hoped, or planned, or dreaded…and things within us gradually find their place and shift more into perspective. When we’re younger, how we appear to others seems to matter so much…in this world so obsessed with external appearance…but age can gift us the awareness that the continual distraction of how we appear externally, may be at the cost of ignoring the deep and sustaining treasure that lies deep within the hearts of us all.

So, the story…

In 2018 I flew to Israel, with the intention of walking to Jerusalem…and I did. I landed in Tel Aviv, caught a bus to Nazareth and then walked from Nazareth to Galilee, back to Nazareth, and then on down to Jerusalem, following the Israel National Trail at first and, later, the coast. It took me 25 days in total, and it was a pilgrimage of 280 miles (450km).

Except for the first day (when I coincided with Bob from the US who was also intending to walk from Nazareth to Cana that day, and with whom I walked for a few hours) I walked entirely alone, which is a wonderful way to be, especially on a pilgrimage. It leaves you free and alert to see, hear, feel and experience everything that’s happening around you, in the moment; to note how you’re responding to it…and to those you meet…and to ask yourself (with time and space to reflect upon the answer) “Why?” “What’s Life trying to teach me with this experience? What is it within me that makes me react in this way, and do I have more control over this experience and these interactions than I thought?“

I loved Galilee and spent several days there, walking alongside the water and visiting Capernaum, Tiberius and the alleged site of the Sermon of the Mount, with its expansive view of the lake below. At first, the constant procession of coaches disgorging visitors from around the world at each site (as I wandered in on foot with my backpack) urked me…because I’m as judgmental and partisan as every other human being who convinces themselves that they’re not. But striking up conversations with some of those same visitors, and hearing their personal reasons for coming to Galilee, soon dispelled my inflated sense of superiority and instant judgement.

Then, as with all journeys within journeys, the time came to leave. I’d spent a few days thinking about and planning my route back to Nazareth, because I was reluctant to retrace the way that I’d come…it just didn’t feel right…and factoring in the high temperatures and lack of places to find or buy water on the alternative way I was planning, gave me plenty of food for thought. My head kept saying “It wouldn’t be wise to go that way…” but my heart kept repeating quietly and with amazing calm “It will be fine…trust…just trust” and so I did.

The morning I left Tiberius, I followed the lake path once again but this time out of the other side of town. As I neared the outskirts, taking my time to glance a few final times at the lake and imagine all that had happened there so many years before, I passed a couple jogging in the opposite direction. As we came level, the woman said to me “Good luck!” and smiled then, a little while later when they returned jogging the other way, she stopped to speak to me. She said that she’d noticed the shell on my backpack, asked me if I’d walked the Camino de Santiago, and went on to tell me how she and her husband had walked it the year before. It was at that moment that any doubts I had about the following day that I’d planned left me, because it was then that I knew, truly, All would be well.

Day One of my planned return to Nazareth was going to be easy…not too far, and with a place to stay that night already booked in advance. Day Two was a different story. Forty-two kilometres (further than I’d ever walked before in one day), a large stretch of that across the Sirin Plateau following the Israel National Trail, and with no villages or known water stops along the way. It seemed totally illogical on the face of it, but the sense that it was what needed to be done was so overwhelming that I chose to trust that feeling. And my trust was rewarded.

Half way across the Plateau I came across a make-shift camp set up by three young Israelis, a young woman and two men. They’d driven out to the deserted area in their camper van and explained to me that they were on a short vacation from National Service and liked to spend it in the wilderness, where they could just enjoy the nature, go for walks and forget all the rules and timetables that they normally had to live by. They were incredibly welcoming, interested in why I was hiking alone, and invited me to share their food and to top up my water supply, refusing any payment in return.

Later in the day, and several hours of walking further on, I came across 3 young teenagers who appeared to be lost and a little stressed because they couldn’t decide which path to take at the crossroads where we came together. I was also a little unsure at that point, because the crossroad signs were confusing and, in the wilderness, there was no-one else to ask. But together we were able to share the information about where we’d each come from and to figure out which direction each of us wanted to go in and, with that collective consultation and brief reassurance, we said our goodbyes and continued on our separate ways.

I’d set off in the morning, just before sunrise, and as twilight began to settle and the sun began to set, I saw Mount Tabor in the distance (my destination for the following day) and reached the lamplit road that ultimately led to my motel accommodation for the night. When I reached my room I was physically exhausted but absolutely euphoric. I sat on my bed, took off my shoes, gave my tired feet the rejuvinating massage that they so much deserved and said a prayer of thanks. I don’t remember exactly what words I used, but I do remember that they included things like “May I never doubt you again” and “With you, it’s true, anything is possible“. Then, filled with a mixture of awe-inspired gratitude and profound inner peace, I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I set off, full of energy and enthusiasm, to climb Mount Tabor. It was an arduous climb but my spirits were so high from the previous day that all I could do was laugh at myself when I struggled to hoick myself and my backpack up the rockier and more challenging parts of it. Eventually I reached the top and was faced with a choice, turn left for the Church of the Transfiguration or right to continue The Israel National Trail to Nazareth. It was tempting to just go right, as I didn’t feel like mingling with coachloads of visitors once again, I still had several hours of walking ahead, and I was keen to reach my hostel before darkness, which arrives quickly and early in Israel in October.

But it also seemed strange not to visit the Church, which was on the path of the Trail, and so symbolic in terms of what it represents…transfiguration. So I turned left, to follow the deserted path through a beautiful, shaded pine forest. And this is what I found waiting for me, face-up, in the middle of the path…a little further on…

It delighted and bemused me in equal measure. So I picked it up, put it in my hip bag to keep as a treasured memory of the previous day, and walked on…only to see another playing card on the path ahead, this time face-down. I approached that one with little laugh of disbelief and a question, more to myself than to the empty forest “What’s going on?!”, looking around to see if I could spot other cards scattered amongst the pine needles, but no, it was the only other one. As I stood over it I tried to predict what it would be before reaching down and turning it over. My conclusion was ‘It won’t be anything significant or, if it is, then it’ll probably be the Ace of Spades‘. But it was this, which I also picked up, popped into my bag and later stuck into my journal…

I found one more thing on that path, before reaching the Church. It was a ball-point pen with no lid. I’d lost the one that I was using the day before and so I pulled out my journal to see if it would write…and it did…straight away.

When I got to the Church and the gardens around it, they were a-throng with visitors but,to my surprise, it didn’t bother me. I had a quiet internal glow of peace that seemed to transcend everything. It transfigured the scene in front of me, if you like…and then I found myself in front of the most beautiful, flowering tree. I have two photos, one of the tree and one of me in front of it. I don’t remember them being taken, but I do remember exactly how it felt to be there.

So what’s the point of this story? Why am I bothering to tell it to you? And why now?

Because I want to convey to you, and to remind myself, that there is more to this “real” world than we often allow ourselves to think or to believe. And it’s this ‘more’ that has the power to teach us, sustain us, strengthen us, and encourage us, in the most challenging and difficult moments of our lives.

Each of the experiences that I’ve recounted above happened in this real world, and I can choose to see them in isolation, with no connection at all, or I can choose to take a broader view and see the deeper meaning and metaphor that lies within them and which connects them all. It’s the story behind the story, if you like.

The material, physical, scientific and financial aspects of our world are very real, to me at least, and not illusory at all. But the way in which we experience them, relate to them, navigate them and respond to them will be greatly influenced by one other key aspect of our life…the spiritual. And, if we have no sense or awareness of this aspect, it can leave us feeling vulnerable and afraid, whenever our circumstances change and/or the people or material things that we relied on for our sense of identity and security suddenly disappear, as they often do.

But the spiritual is eternal. It lives within us, it lives around us, and it is always present, always with us. It has the power to reveal to us that, while our material world is not an illusion, the way in which we perceive it and believe we must respond to it, often can be. And that’s where our inner voice comes in. The Spirit within us knows, and the more we grow accustomed to its voice, the more it will reveal to us what is right for us in each moment and what we, and our lives, are truly capable of.

How do we recognise it and distinguish it from other voices? Well, what I’ve learned is that it talks to me and makes its presence known to me in very personal ways and its message is always anchored in unifying Love, opening my eyes to it or stimulating my response to it, but never in the form of wild excitement or compulsion, nor anger, nor shame. On the contrary, its way of being and communicating always fills me with a quiet sense of knowing calm, even when it’s prompting me to do something that feels beyond my knowledge or capabilties at the time.

Often we can find ourselves in the company of naysayers, ridiculers and cynics, people who dismiss any talk of the spiritual, and/or who try to dominate us with their talk of the “real world” and their limiting and fear-filled points of view. It’s the Spirit within us that helps us to look beyond the limits of what can’t be done, to the promise and potential of what can. Fortunately, there are many who’ve gone before us and, just by their own example, have shown us the way.

“While they were saying it could not be done…it was done.”

– Helen Keller