Walking the Path of ChristoSophia

THE BYPATHS OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Along the great highroads of the world everything seems desolate and outworn.  Instinctively the modern man leaves the trodden ways to explore the by-paths . . .

            Although we have been devout spiritual seekers within Christian tradition for many years, we have not felt spiritually fulfilled within the institutional Christian Church.  The following metaphor illuminates this seemingly paradoxical situation, which many like us experience today.  For most people the Christian Church is like a busy interstate highway, with its gentle curves and gradients, well marked traffic signs, easy entrances and exits, and comfortable rest stops along the way.  Just as an interstate highway facilitates the efficient movement of large numbers of people to a distant city, so the institution of the Christian Church facilitates the efficient movement of large numbers of people to the City of God.  However, just as some people are called by a sense of adventure to leave the monotony of the interstate highway for less traveled, more picturesque byroads, many people such as ourselves have left the institutional Christian Church today to travel along the spiritual bypaths.

When we leave the interstate highway, we immediately gain a heightened awareness of the landscape as we travel along the byroad.  Whereas the builders of the interstate have cut through mountains and filled in swamps to maintain the gentle gradient, the byroad follows the natural contours of the land and we feel closer to nature as we journey on our way.  We feel even closer to nature when we forsake our car and set off by foot through the countryside, where we can smell the earth, feel the breeze, hear the birds and insects, and see the great variety of life all around us.  The physical effort required in walking the bypaths also helps build our stamina and endurance.  In a similar way, walking along "spiritual bypaths" can strengthen the spirit.  Walking along bypaths is a much simpler way of traveling, but it requires more exertion and commitment. Thus, there have been only a few hardy pilgrims who have traveled the spiritual bypaths of Christian tradition throughout the ages.  Their explorations reveal a hidden tradition within Christianity which is vital for us to rediscover today.  Unfortunately, many of these significant bypaths within the Christian tradition have been poorly maintained, barricaded, and even destroyed in the process of building the Church.  We believe that the major problem of Christianity today is the suppression of those elements within its tradition which recognize the feminine dimension of the Divine, the presence of the sacred within the natural world, and the value of mystical experience.  Today, many seekers are striving to recover these elements of Christian spirituality through their journeys along the feminine, nature, and mystical bypaths.  There they eventually find that the bypaths merge into an essential unity, forming one Path.  We refer to this path as the Path of ChristoSophia because we believe that the discovery of the sacred Feminine is at the center of the hidden tradition in Christian spirituality.