November 26-A, 2022

Alone 07/13/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, Boone, North Carolina
This tree was dead before my first visit to the Parkway, and it has never been more alive. That’s life for you.

Life's hazards--
moving, sickness, death, 
the death of close friends and family members,
getting old past self-care...
the list goes on--
tosses us about,
out of our comfortable routines,
away from our path,
inside out,
upside down...

And it takes a lot of emptiness,
stillness
and silence
to re-orient ourselves
"upon the heaving waves of the wine dark sea"
(Homer, the Odyssey).

We do not find the way again
so much as we wait for the way
to find us.

Like "the wand chooses the wizard,"
the way chooses the traveler,
and comes back around again and again
until the traveler wakes up
to its presence,
and takes up the journey again and again.

This is enlightenment in action.
Waking up to the way again and again.

Open yourself to the return of the way,
and wait it out.

It is coming like the tide
to buoy you up
and carry you along.

Just wait,
watching,
trusting.

It will come.
Again.
And again.

–0–

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters and five granddaughters within about twenty minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything. View more posts