Part III: Exile Before Destiny

​A few years back, my partner and I started an adventure, an art gallery. Something I knew nothing about. For Elizabeth, a born artist, her dream was to own an art gallery. For me, as I said, it was an adventure. After watching The Odessey, I asked myself, “aren’t we all Odysseus?” Or “are we Moses of our lives?”. This is a chapter of what that question led me to.
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Part III
Exile Before Destiny

"Every great journey begins with a departure, but not every departure is chosen."
Neither Moses nor Odysseus begins as a hero standing triumphantly before his people. Neither sets out because he longs for adventure. Both are forced into movement by circumstances beyond their control. Their stories begin with exile.
Moses flees Egypt after killing an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave (Exodus 2:11–15). Raised as an Egyptian prince yet born a Hebrew, he belongs fully to neither world. In a single day, he loses his status, his home, and his future. The palace that once sheltered him becomes the place from which he must escape. He crosses into the wilderness not as a prophet but as a fugitive.
Odysseus experiences a different kind of exile. His homeland still exists, but it is unreachable. After ten years of war at Troy, he longs only to return to Ithaca. Yet the sea itself seems determined to keep him away. Storms, monsters, enchantresses, and divine conflicts delay him for another decade. His exile is not from his country alone but from his identity as husband, father, and king.
One man runs from home.
The other cannot return home.
Yet both become wanderers.

Exile as the Universal Human Experience
Exile is one of humanity's oldest stories. Long before Moses crossed the Sinai or Odysseus sailed the Mediterranean, Adam and Eve were driven from Eden (Genesis 3:23–24). Abraham left Ur without knowing his destination (Genesis 12:1). Joseph was sold into Egypt. David fled from Saul. Even the early Christians described themselves as "foreigners and exiles on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11).
The Bible repeatedly presents exile not merely as punishment but as preparation.
The desert becomes God's classroom. Likewise, Greek mythology treats wandering as the forge of character. Homer never portrays Odysseus' travels as wasted years. Every island strips away another illusion. Every trial teaches another form of wisdom. The cunning warrior gradually becomes a wiser man because he has suffered. This pattern appears across civilizations because it reflects something deeply human. We rarely become who we are meant to be while remaining comfortable.

The Psychology of Being Uprooted
Modern psychology offers remarkable confirmation of this ancient insight. Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson argued that identity is not inherited but formed through crises. Each major life transition forces individuals to ask, "Who am I now?" Stability alone cannot answer that question.
Psychologist Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun developed the theory of Post-Traumatic Growth, demonstrating that many people emerge from profound adversity with greater appreciation for life, deeper relationships, increased personal strength, and renewed purpose. Trauma does not automatically produce wisdom, but it can become the soil in which wisdom grows.

Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, followed by Victor Turner, described the middle stage of every rite of passage as liminality—a period of being "between worlds." During this stage, old identities have dissolved while new identities have not yet formed. It is uncomfortable, uncertain, and often frightening. This perfectly describes Moses in Midian. It perfectly describes Odysseus upon the sea.
Neither belongs where he came from.
Neither has yet arrived where he is going.
Psychologically, this is one of the most creative moments in human life.

The Wilderness Between Identities
For forty years Moses tends sheep in Midian. At first glance, these years appear uneventful. Scripture tells us little about them. Yet these silent decades transform a prince into a shepherd, and eventually into the shepherd of a nation. The wilderness slows him. It teaches patience. It teaches dependence. It strips away the confidence of royalty and replaces it with humility. When God finally speaks from the burning bush (Exodus 3), Moses no longer resembles the impulsive young man who killed an Egyptian in anger. His first response is not confidence but hesitation:
"Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?" (Exodus 3:11)
The exile has changed him.

Odysseus undergoes an equally profound transformation. At Troy, he relied primarily on cleverness and strategy. During his wanderings, however, intelligence alone repeatedly proves insufficient. His pride blinds him before Polyphemus. His curiosity almost destroys him with the Sirens. His crew's lack of discipline brings catastrophes. Each failure teaches limits. By the time he reaches Ithaca, he no longer returns as the celebrated conqueror of Troy. He returns disguised as a beggar. The greatest hero in Greece enters his own kingdom unnoticed. Only a man transformed by exile could accept such humility.

Why Exile Creates Wisdom
Comfort preserves habits. Exile exposes them. Routine allows us to believe that our identity depends upon our occupation, our possessions, our nationality, or our reputation. Exile quietly removes these layers one by one until the question becomes unavoidable: Who am I when everything familiar disappears?
This question lies at the heart of both Scripture and psychology.
The Israelites would later lose Jerusalem and discover that God could still be worshiped in Babylon. The disciples would lose Jesus before discovering the meaning of resurrection.
The early Church would spread precisely because persecution scattered its members.
Again and again, displacement becomes the birthplace of unexpected growth. As the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung observed, much of psychological development requires confronting the unknown rather than remaining within the familiar. The journey inward often begins with a journey outward.
 
Our Modern Exiles
Few people today wander deserts or spend ten years at sea. Yet exile remains one of the defining experiences of modern life. Migration. Divorce. Job loss. Retirement. Illness. The death of a loved one. The collapse of a dream. The empty nest. Each removes us from a former identity.

We call these moments crises. The Bible often calls them wilderness. Neither Moses nor Odysseus would have chosen exile. Neither would have become the person history remembers without it. Perhaps this is why the greatest transformations seldom begin with achievement.
They begin with loss.
The promised land and Ithaca are important. But they are not where wisdom begins. Wisdom begins in the wilderness. The road between Egypt and Canaan, between Troy and Ithaca, is more than a geographical distance. It is the distance between the person we once believed ourselves to be and the person suffering slowly reveals.
Exile is therefore not the interruption of destiny. It is the place where destiny is quietly forged.

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