(I wrote this when I was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Sausalito, CA....)
When the weather in Sausalito is particularly lovely, our town is overrun by tourists from all over the world. When I walk down the hill for lunch, I pass by hordes of people peering into the shops on the waterfront, looking for... what?
The tourists mostly come from the same place: a town called Where. It’s the generic American community with its mall or downtown which has all the usual global chain stores. We all know what’s at Where. Knowing what we all know, and bored with it, the people of Where became tourists looking for... what?
Looking for clothes in Sausalito? Here we have much of the same clothes sold in all the Wheres of Ohio, Iowa, Omaha, and Oklahoma. Looking for ice cream? It’s essentially no different than what’s available in the Wheres of Nashville, Asheville, Louisville, or Jacksonville. Looking for art? Much of what is sold in Sausalito is more or less mass-produced. Most of what’s downtown is a repeat of what is to be found in every other waterfront tourist town in America, from Sandusky to Sarasota to San Diego. Why do tourists shop at these places? They seem to seek tangible evidence to document their travels. But the evidence they bring home was made by the same factories in China that produce the items sold in every other tourist destination. So in a way, it’s not Sausalito they are visiting. Rather, they have come to make a pilgrimage to a generic Elsewhere. At Elsewhere, you can expect to find salt-water taffy stores, tee-shirt stores, stores that sell wind-up toys, ice-cream, and fast-food. At Elsewhere, so you don’t feel totally lonesome for Where, you’ll find several of the usual chain stores, and even a sweet little Presbyterian church that reminds you of the one back home. There is a carefully calibrated distinction between Where and Elsewhere. The difference is just barely enough to make it interesting, but not so interesting that it would cause any anxiety about encountering the radically unfamiliar.
But having taken vacations there many times, the tourist may get the desire to seek out someplace beyond Elsewhere. The tourist may realize that a certain amount of anxiety with the radically unfamiliar might be a healthy thing. At that point, the tourist ventures further, wandering off Bridgeway Avenue and visiting with the grizzled guy who carves totem poles by the mudflats near the docks on the north end of town, and then visiting the studios of the local artists at Liberty Ship Way.. The tourist then climbs up the public stairs to catch the amazing views, and from there, who knows? To the clubs where the local people hang out and listen to jazz? Instead of just snapping a picture of that cute Presbyterian church, the tourist goes inside, and after worship goes to coffee hour, and gets to know a bunch of people who might see the world differently than the way people see things back home.
The soul is like a tourist who gets bored with Where and decides to go Elsewhere for a vacation. The soul takes a prayer or a dream to get to Elsewhere, and once there, finds that things are not too much different than they are in Where. It feels like a pleasant break from the routine, but there are no shattering surprises. The spiritual tourist goes Elsewhere and there meets the 1950’s Sunday-School God he or she expected to meet. This Elsewhere of the Spirit is a calmer and kinder place than Where. But after praying or meditating the way to Elsewhere many times, the soul-tourist begins to realize that Elsewhere is just a prettier copy of Where, an idealized projection of his or her own everyday reality, and that there must be more to experience than what is found Elsewhere. So the soul strays from the well-trod path and discovers that within the heart there is a realm that isn’t familiar, that doesn’t correspond to how he or she thinks things are or ought to be. The realm beyond Elsewhere is both beautiful and terrifying. In this place, the soul doubts its assumptions about itself and about the nature of God. The soul confronts its prejudices, questions its neat theological constructs, challenges its habits and beliefs. It’s more work to go beyond Elsewhere, but it’s also exhilarating and energizing. And as the soul travels further in this place, it begins to gain faith in its ability to live and love despite, and even because of, the uncertainty and ambiguity around it. In Where, the soul barely pays attention to God at all. In Elsewhere, the soul worships the God it thinks it knows. Beyond Elsewhere, the soul worships the God it knows it does not know.
All of us are tourists, trying to get a break from Where. May we all stray from the main drag of the soul, and seek out the less-beaten paths that take us beyond Elsewhere and into the mystery and majesty that is God.