Legend has it that before the voyages of Columbus and other Western adventurers, European mapmakers inscribed the words ne plus ultra, “there is no more, “ at the far edges of their maps. After the voyages of Columbus and others, these same mapmakers revised both their maps and their visions of reality. Although they had little knowledge of what lay beyond the far horizon, these mapmakers knew enough to inscribe the words plus ultra, “there is more,” at the Western perimeters of their maps.

It was an ordinary day when Luke described how the challenges of Peter’s workplace were transformed. The scene is set in Luke 5 where Jesus is teaching in the shallow waters, a boat as his pulpit. When he is done preaching he turns and says: “Go deeper” “Huh,” Peter says. “What do you mean go deeper? I am a professional. I have been working this lake a long time and today there is no fish.”

To Peter and friends, worn-out and discouraged from an unsuccessful night’s fishing, Jesus asked the impossible when he challenged them to “launch out into the deep.” But Jesus’ deeper vision encompassed both the sea and their lives. There is more! And Peter and his friends clearly had to revise their spiritual maps as they hauled an overwhelming catch into their boat.

If we can dare imagine new spiritual horizons we certainly find good company in the Bible’s own “choose your own adventure” stories of “There is more!” The creed of any age and all adventurers and pilgrims, whether their journeys take place above the earth’s atmosphere or on the Camino road; exploring patterns of connectedness in the world of quantum physics or walking the labyrinth, is always the affirmation  “Plus Ultra”

There is more!