Today was Epiphany and this evening in the cathedral we marked this with a Eucharist service rather than evensong.

The whole Epiphany thing, where we remember the visit of the Magi and the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, seems to me to be all about journeying.

While reflecting today, listening to Neil’s sermon this evening, and after reading Maggi’s final reflection in Beginnings and Endings, I was struck by the journey of the magi and how that journey connected with my thoughts here on the life changing disruption a baby causes.

The encounter with the Christ child for the magi was also disruptive. They traveled, following the star but had to return home by a different route. For them, as for others, the encounter with this child meant things could never be the same again. For them, it meant returning home via different route. For them it gave opportunity of fresh discovery.

That sense of returning home by a different route resonates with me at this point in time. A couple of people have asked me how I am feeling about ‘stuff’ over the last few days and I must admit that as well as starting to become frustrated with waiting I feel very much as if I know where I am going, or I roughly know where I think I should be, but that I need to find a new route to get there. I don’t necessarily think it’s a new fresh path – I don’t think the Magi would have made a fresh track, it would probably have been walked by others but it was new to them as they had never taken the route. I wonder whether there is a path, a route, an ancient track that needs rediscovering, uncovering and walking along again.

But it is not just about the destination is it! There is something about the actual journey itself. There is something about noticing what you are passing through, the ‘lie of the land’ and the context of what you are seeing.

One of my little frustrations is that our family car came with a free DVD player. It’s great for long journey’s when you ahve 3 children and when we travel to Dorset, Devon or Cornwall it comes in very handy for a peaceful journey. But … when we travel short distances, such as 20 minutes to Bluewater or 40 minutes to Canterbury the children have started to like to watch DVD’s for this short time. They plug in via their headphones to whatever film they choose. While they do this, the outside world that they are passing through whizzes by un-noticed.

I can’t help but think they are missing out on stuff that children of previous generations would have noticed. Things go by and my children travel through areas untouched by the outside world. They know the start and end of their journey well, but the middle part is missing.

I feel there is something in this ‘journey stuff’ for me to reflect upon. I am asking and wondering what it might be that God wishes me to notice on the way. I guess to notice things properly there is a need to journey slowly and register and take note of what God puts in the path of the traveler. To pioneer is to go slow and allow God to show me how to discover stuff afresh.

So … here’s to more of that frustrating waiting then!