Further up! Further In!

On a ride with Honor

These past couple of weeks I have been pondering endings and beginnings, due entirely to the fact that I have had a lot of the former this summer, which has precipitated the latter. Like it or not, moving is that way (a fact I've managed to avoid for 20+ years). But the time has come--in less than two weeks, we'll say our last few farewells and head for California for months and months.

As I explored in my last blog, an ending is also a beginning, so even though it is not without angst, it is still good. Going through a door means leaving a room behind, and in big or small ways, we are not the same when next we enter.

All of life, in a way, is a passage from known to unknown. When we experience the unfamiliar, we seek to establish an equilibrium, a familiarity, so that we can relax and understand at least part of what we are living.

Skye

But if finding and maintaining equilibruim becomes our over-arching goal, then we will remain forever in that spot. Growing older. Less brave. Less able to pioneer and break open new ground. If we are not careful, we store our wisdom and experience in a safe place, hung like armor we once used in battle but now gathering dust, removed from its usefulness and true purpose.

Our spirits strain against such things, I think, and our eternal-ness, like a captive bird, flies against the bars of a cage we have forged ourselves--forged of comfort and familiarity. We bid our hearts be satisfied with a warm meal and a bed at the end of a day, when we were really made to climb the heights and plumb the depths of a thousand fresh horizons.

Here we have no continuing city, and deep is calling us ever deeper. If there is a threshold before us, let us don the armor of braver days, and whether it be big or small, may we step forward and embrace what is to come!



New Paths Await!