Sacred Connections: Paths
During the Christmas Season, we may have found ourselves with more time and spaciousness to notice the world around us – the breeze on a chilly day, the warmth of sun, the birds and squirrels vying for position at the feeder, perhaps more subtly the tracks of deer. On Christmas morning, my eyes were captured by a cardinal, his vivid red cloak in sharp contrast to the dust of snow and the dark of damp earth. A cardinal had caught my attention in such a way many years ago, in another season of my life soon after someone very dear to me had died. And yes, there have been hundreds of cardinal sightings in between, just none that had drawn me in quite so deeply.
I found myself musing, what my life might look like now had my loved one not died. It had been so many years, and yet as many of us have experienced, there is still an ache that remains. Yet in this space, with this distance, there was the honest awareness that even if that future that I had so hoped for had been possible, it would not have been without challenges and all the vagaries of life’s unknowns. And then I thought of the blessings that fill my life today – would there have been any space for them? And I felt such awareness of how very blessed I do feel every day.
Just over two years ago, Les McNeil chose the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken, as a reading for the memorial service of her beloved husband, Red. This poem is such a compelling tale of the small and large choices that frame our lives. Frost’s poem is about our choices, the paths we choose. We all have had that experience of loss or tragedy or struggle that is not of our choosing, situations not of our liking at all. And yet even in the midst of misery, there are paths, choices available to us. Even in the darkness there is light, the light of Christ.
Much of the time our minds are so filled with current news and concerns that we don’t allow ourselves the time to reflect on the passages of our lives, the seasons we have found ourselves in and the steps we’ve taken from there. And yet, such a look can be helpful, can give us perspective on the paths we’ve traveled, the ones we’ve chosen and the ones that seemingly chose us, the gentle, adventurous, and more difficult ones, the unexpected blessings and the unanticipated falls. As we look back, where might we also see God’s presence and guidance along the way?
Looking closer in, this holiday season, we are saying farewell to a year more different and difficult than most of us could have conceived of, one that has challenged our perspectives, values, identities, and ways of life. Let us reflect on the circumstances we’ve experienced and the choices we’ve made, what we’ve learned, how we’ve grown, what we’ve shared. Let us look to the path ahead, with awareness of what we want to carry with us going forward, and what we might choose to leave behind. Whatever path before us, let us walk together in Christ’s love.
The Road not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
