Map by Gerard Mercator (1512–1594), Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612), and Hendrik Hondius (1597–1651).
Published in 1623 by Hendricus Hondius, Amsterdam.
Image courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.
Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
Raised within the Romano-Byzantine tradition—formed by both the Roman and Byzantine Catholic rites—I was shaped by a confluence of liturgical beauty, theological depth, and mystical reverence. From that upbringing, there remains not merely memory, but a lasting affection for the rhythm and substance of the faith of my youth. It is not simply a cultural inheritance, but a formative lens through which the sacred, the communal, and the mysterious first revealed themselves. Yet, it would not be accurate to describe my present stance as that of a lapsed Catholic, nor as an atheist, nor as one alienated from the Church. Alienation implies disaffection or estrangement born of expectation unmet or betrayal suffered. What remains is neither rejection nor rebellion, but something quieter and more reflective—a posture of reverent detachment that neither clings nor condemns.
Any attempt to articulate my position must begin by acknowledging the futility of articulation itself—at least in matters concerning the Divine. The belief that the Divine wholly exceeds the bounds of human comprehension and articulation grows only firmer over time. All creeds, revelations, and theological systems—however earnest or inspired—are, in the end, efforts to sketch with a cramped human lexicon and limited imagination that which lies beyond even the highest powers of conception. Far from illuminating the Divine, such efforts only obscure its immensity by imposing upon it our narrow symbols and forms.
Better to liken our theological endeavors to the drawing of maps—maps sketched by explorers who had never seen the coasts they sought to chart. Just as early cartographers filled the margins with dragons, saints, and imagined cities, we adorn the unknown with creeds, cosmologies, and commandments. These are sincere efforts, yet they more often reflect our hopes and fears than reveal any transcendent truth. The more intricate the system, the more seductive the illusion that the map is the territory. But the Divine is not a line upon a page. It is the sea beneath the sea monster, the silence beyond the compass rose, the continent whose very existence remains unknown. To name the Divine is already to misname it; to describe is to distort.
Such a perspective finds its truest expression in apophatic mysticism—the via negativa, the way of negation—a tradition articulated by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Christian thinker of the late fifth to early sixth century whose writings permeate the Catholic tradition through the works of Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Spanish mystics, reminding us that the path of unknowing is not a break from faith, but one of its most ancient and revered expressions. In this light, God is not wise, not good, not just, not loving—not because the Divine lacks these qualities, but because our highest notions of them remain shadows cast by a light we cannot behold. Whatever we say of the Divine, however conceived, the most faithful statement is this: our words fall short.
Even so, human beings remain kataphatic creatures as well—creatures who long to speak, to name, to worship, to relate. Thus arises a kataphatic-apophatic tension, a profound and permanent unease between the impulse to speak of the Divine and the recognition that all speech fails. Hymns, liturgies, cathedrals, and doctrines are all human responses to this tension—not to capture the Divine, but to reach toward it, however falteringly. These gestures deserve neither scorn nor uncritical assent. They should be honored, but held lightly, cherished as poems rather than mistaken for proofs.
This tension extends beyond the realm of theology into the very nature of being itself. In a moment of quiet reflection, I found myself asking: “Where is Am I?”—caught between breath and thought, a question turning circles in the hollow of my chest. Am I the echo, or the voice that trembles back? A fragment drifting through the hour, a flicker in the endless light, unsure if I was ever whole or if the pieces were ever mine to find. Such a question is not mere existential uncertainty, but a recognition that the self, like the Divine, eludes definitive capture.
No formal creed or written revelation authored by man commands my assent, however noble or inspired it may be. Faith is not placed in these constructions, though the sacred yearning from which they arise is deeply respected. They are echoes of an original voice no longer heard directly, outlines of a presence glimpsed but never grasped. Like the adornments on ancient maps, these expressions are beautiful and sincere, but they are not to be mistaken for the thing itself.
To some, this may resemble agnosticism, though that word has become burdened with meanings it was never intended to carry—meanings of indecision, skepticism, or apathy. What is expressed here is none of those. It is not a shrug of the shoulders, but a bow of the head. Not the silence of the indifferent, but of the reverent. Not ignorance, but a conscious unknowing—a sacred refusal to impose limitation upon that which exceeds all bounds. This is why I eschew agnostic labels in favor of mystical ones—for the mystic does not claim ignorance of the Divine but acknowledges that true knowledge of it transcends conventional understanding.
What remains, then, is a life lived in contemplation of the ineffable—a contemplation that finds expression through creative work. In poetry, music, and essay, I reach toward that which cannot be directly named. When I write of the “eternal now” where “yesterday, tomorrow, and today collapse,” or compose lyrics that honor Humilitatem Initium Sapientiae, I am not merely creating art but engaging in a form of contemplative practice. These creative acts serve as bridges, not only between myself and the ineffable, but also between myself and others who share this reverent space, regardless of their formal religious affiliations or φιλοσοφίαι (philosophies or wisdom traditions).
The path ahead is not marked by certainty but by awe, not by declarations but by listening. Mystery is not something to be solved, but something to be honored. Years of formal study—first in history and religious studies as an undergraduate, then as a teacher of both subjects, and later through a long career in civil rights law and public service—have only deepened the awareness that human systems, whether intellectual, doctrinal, or legal, ultimately encounter their limits at the threshold of the sacred. In this, the apophatic tradition offers a spiritual home—a dwelling place where reverence begins precisely where language ends. If there is a guiding light for such a path, it is humility—humilitatem initium sapientiae—not merely as a moral posture, but as a metaphysical necessity. That teaching, which echoes throughout Thomas à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, remains not only a personal motto, but a settled conviction: that wisdom begins when one ceases to pretend to possess it.
Near the staircase in my front hallway hangs an early map of the New World—an artifact I have long cherished. Its artistry is matched only by its courage, for it dares to depict what was not yet known. Near the region now recognized as Virginia and the Carolinas, a sea monster rises from the ocean’s depths, signaling peril or wonder—perhaps both. On the land itself, figures of “natives” stand, imagined by a hand that never walked those coasts. That map does not record the world; it records what the world dared to imagine. So, too, do our theologies populate the margins of metaphysical uncertainty with monsters and angels, commandments and visions. They are imaginative acts—sincere, flawed, luminous. And like that map, they are to be cherished not for their precision but for what they reveal of the human longing to reach into mystery with word and symbol, with ink and awe. In their earnest striving, they remind us: we are always sketching the edge of the unknown, even when we know we cannot cross it.
Northcoast Antiquarian 