Wanderers

Back in January I posted a short commentary on a quote I read from the Eastern European Jewish tale The Angel of Losses , "... a tzaddik who searches after lost things is himself sometimes lost."
That line brought up something very near and dear to my heart, that idea of being a seeker. I have in many ways made a way out of being a seeker, both intellectually and spiritually. I have been called foolish for this, and told I will never find myself closer to the creator by being a wanderer, but that doesnt stop me. By searching, enjoying the question as much as the answer, and always pursuing the questions, I have found myself much strength and guidance.
Today I was the Fall 2004 issue of Parabola magazine (an excellent journal, easily found at most bookstores) and came across an article by Bishop Seraphim Sigrist, an American Russian Orthodox bishop, titled "The Wanderer".
In it he poses a question, "Why does the spiritual wanderer set out?"
In answering it he speaks of Saint Brendan (The navigator), an Irish monk (B. 489 D. 583, roughly) who visited placed all over the Celtic world by boat and supposedly made a great Westward voyage in a leather hulled currach. Although some say he discovered the Americas, the old tale says he sought "the Isles of the Blessed", located beyond this world. J.R.R. Tokien wrote in his poem The Death of Brendan

"The round world plunges steeply down
but on the old road goes
as an unseen bridge that on arches runs
to coasts that no man knows."

In the Bishops article this leads him to ask why Brendan journeyed west. As a possible answer he quotes the words of a friend, upon hearing the news of a mutual friends death, "I thought of the voyages of the ancient Celts in search of their 'place of Ressurection.'"
Suddenly I was reminded of what I posted yesterday, the John Donne poem. I was particularly moved by the phrase Oppenheimer took for Trinity, and had been thinking about it a lot, "As in East and West in all flat maps - and I am one - Are one, so death shall touch the Resurrection".
Donne was a priest and preacher in England, and wrote "Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness" bed-ridden with great fever (hence the first reference to Magellan, who died of fever, "Per fretum febris").
In "Hymn..." Donne makes reference to several Straits (That of Magellan, Anyan, and Gibraltar). A strait represents a tight place of passage, between to large bodies of water, literally, or figuratively we can safely say it is a reference to making the journey, from one place unto another. Perhaps as Brendan journeyed from this world to another and back again.
Going back to the article, Bishop Seraphim goes on to suggest the search for the place of our resurrection, while in simple terms in the search for the "place of one's death" or even death itself, is not just that. He says it is first of all the search for ones "End", the goal at the end of full disclosure of personal destiny.
He then brings up the image of the burning mountain, or fire on the mountain - in I Ching Hexagram 56 says "Fire on the mountain: the image of the Wanderer". In the tale of Brendan he comes, almost at the end of his voyage, through clouds to see a mountain rising from the sea, wreathed in fire, "the whole mountain from the summit to the sea seemed as one great pyre", which Tokien expressed "on its ashen head was a crown of red, where fire flamed and fell, Tall as a column in High Heavens Hall, its feet were deep as Hell..."
Moses climbed the mountain into fire, pressing on as if "into a kiln" and returns having found his End, the tablets of the Commandments, guidance and leadership for his people.
There is an old folk song, from the Southern hill country, that includes "Fire on the mountain, run boys run" (The Grateful Dead, and Charlie Daniels band, among others, have all used this in other songs). On a particularly excellent page RE the Grateful Dead's song, one commentator points out that as a child he was taught a song to encourage kids to remember their bible verses, and study lest they not go to Heaven, the song went

"There's a fire on the mountain tonight,
No place to run, no place to hide.
Where would you go if you had to die tonight?
There's a fire on the mountain tonight."

Now... that would surely work to give kids something frightening to think about as motivation for their studies, but I propose its origin and deeper meaning isnt that - "Where would you go if you had to die tonight? There's a fire on the mountain tonight" combines the image of the wanderer (fire on the mountain) with a very direct sense of movement, travel - the implication of death, finding ones end is clear, as is the implication of a resurrection, presumably in Heaven.
The idea that those reaching the term of their journey, or finding their end, find a great joy and simplicity in their now completed lives is carried in the above, and is also carried in the legend of Brendan and in "The High History of the Holy Grail" where two of its Welsh Knight guardians return to their homes to live out the last of their days simply, but happily, having found their way, and telling others "Go where we went and you will know why" (Similarly Brendan, in Tolkiens telling, says to his apprentice "find for yourself things out of mind, you will learn no more from me."

All those who truly walk a path, who seek, are wanderers, and they are not lost. Those who sit in one place, and fervently claim truth and touch with the spiritual are the lost. Wandering aimless and lost in the wilderness is not making the journey to the lands of Israel. They have found no end, and make no effort to do so, despite any claims otherwise. If they actually had, they would need no such claims, and would only encourage others to make their own journeys.
Jesus is quoted as having said "Be as passerby", but that can be directly translated as being "Be wanderers".

"... a tzaddik who searches after lost things is himself sometimes lost. And as you know, it is necessary to search in the dark, in the realm of the unknown. And with what do you search in the darkness? With the light of the soul. For the soul is a light planted in the tzaddik to seek after whatever has been lost." Reb Nachman.