The Wanderer

 

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” ~ Joseph Campbell

 

I just love listening to kids talk about what they want to become when they ‘grow up’. Such lofty dreams and visions, most of which never materialize. And this is not for lack of desire or faith. When we embark on a journey, most people at least have an idea of how long it will take, the route they will use and the estimated time of arrival, all things being constant: ceteris paribus. But, constancy is a theoretical concept, not a functional idea in reality.

Life has a way of twisting and turning from one day to the next and sometimes it throws us into a tailspin we don’t seem to be able to slow down on our own. This is where resilience, patience, introspection and reflection come in handy to keep your sanity and hold you together in the thick of the storm.

Such upheavals, if handled well, also have the potential to send us on new, exciting and interesting paths we would never have taken on our own. If we allow the storm to land us where it wills without resistance, we never know who we will meet, what we will learn, or where we will go. I try to carry my note book and camera with me, and keep my smile intact for every journey – planned or unplanned. It makes life so much richer.

Indeed, if we could see the whole path laid out ahead of time, it would be so boring. And even for those choleric personalities who prefer to have the pegs in a line, all ‘tees crossed and eyes dotted’ some divinely inspired excitement can add some spice to your life.

Unfortunately, in my earlier years, I reveled in being impatient and snappy. It was either my way or the highway, and grace was only for me to receive and never to give. As I grow older, I’m reflecting more on the sins of my past and how many opportunities for joy I have wasted in my hurry to nowhere. I am finally learning that the grace I have so freely received should be freely given.

“Not all who wander are lost.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

This is a quote that opened my eyes to the fact that I should not judge people’s paths by the leg of the journey I can see. I don’t know where they have been and I do not know where they are going and actually, I only know where I have been – where I am going is still a journey in progress. So today, keep a child-like curiosity about you on your journey. Return the smiles you receive on the journey – it might be the beginning of something great. Journal about the interesting things that happen on your path, they will be the reasons for gratitude up ahead. But most importantly, give grace to those you meet on your path, they are not lost; just finding their way, like you.

“When you reach the top of a hill, you can often look back and see the whole path you took to make the journey. But while you’re on the path, it’s sometimes impossible to see where you are going or where you have been.” ~ Alice Feeney

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Pain

Image
  On Pain Kahlil Gibran, 1883 – 1931 And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:   For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,   And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay whic...
Read more

Out for Service

Hi readers. Unfortunately the musings are at still at the garage and return date is still out in the clouds. I found a great quote that put this pause into perspective for me. As you hold out patiently, I'd love for you think about the things that look like unnecessary curve balls in your life today. Are they really?  Enjoy the archives, luckily they are rich in content as we wait for a return.  " The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day. " ~ C.S. Lewis CG
Read more

Horse and Buggy Days

Image
  “ I am old enough to enjoy a bit of nostalgia, but wise enough to know that there haven’t been any “good ol’ days” since Eden (the garden, not the prime minister). ” ~ Ron Brackin During my devotion this week, I found myself reminiscing about the ‘good ol’ days’. One of the verses I’d read had put me in that frame of mind and I rested there a while before reality called me back. The verse was from Habakkuk 3:2, which reads “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” (NIV) I had been reading a news article before I read my Bible that day, and it’s easy to see why that verse jumped out at me and sent me into the land of Nostalgia. Things are bad and so much is not working out. Time is moving but not much else is. Problems are mounting and solutions are few. So yes, I remember the days when prayers were answered; when miracles were popping all around me; when it was one...
Read more