The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of those “someday” books I have never read. If that seems odd coming from someone on a spiritual quest, consider this: My awareness of John Bunyan’s Christian allegory stems from a single phrase, “the Slough of Despond.” Other writers seem to like it, because it has turned up quite often throughout my reading life.
Christian in the Slough of Despond. Detail from a painting by William Blake.
The word slough for me has different echoes, coming from years living on the great Western Prairies. I thought of those years as an exile from Eden, from a time and a place I never wanted to leave. The loss was final, could never be reversed. Yet it was during these years that my life went from journey to quest.
For the heartsick, the Prairies in winter are a desolate place, devoid of life, the cold a curse. In summer, bleak white gives way to green, then gold, and suddenly there are the surprising sloughs. The endless sky, hard as shellac, seems to give up its colour to these small bodies of water. There it becomes something paradoxical, accessible but precious, a blue to lift the heart out of itself, to feed it with desire.
Journey becomes a quest for understanding in the crossover from outward to inward terrain. There are mountains, there is wilderness, there are plateaus and wide seas. There will be sloughs, if not exactly of the Bunyan variety. From time to time I find myself becalmed in a Sargasso Sea, a place I learned about in grade school and never forgot.
Geography helps you in the quest.
- Inward and outward lives move in tandem.
- Reason clarifies the spiritual quest.
- New understanding illuminates the outer journey.
In deep forest without a trail ~ æssmith photo
In the midst of a spiritual muddle, see yourself in deep forest without a trail and bring reason to bear.
- How did you get here?
- What were you trying to do?
- Where is the light? See it in your mind.
- Wait for it, then go in that direction.
The light, the vision of God that is true and good, is what the quest is all about. It reminds us of what we always know and continually forget, that beyond the vision is the One with the answers. We need only ask, patiently await the reply even when it seems a long time coming, focus on the single footstep moving forward, and pray as we go.
My father, who grew up on the Prairies and knows a thing or two about sloughs, is my inspiration in this. He was an infantry soldier in wartime, trained to keep moving on command, no matter how weary, sore or hungry, until the goal was reached. He knows how to slog. Now in advanced old age with serious health issues, life is a slough of discomforts and small indignities, especially for a man who once commanded and encouraged others. But ask him how he’s doing and he’ll just smile. “Doing good,” he’ll say. “Doing good.”