Journeying Down New Roads

“Looking for God [is sometimes] like looking for a path in a field of untrodden snow.  Walk across the snow and there is your path.”

Thomas Merton

I am learning day by day that change involves awareness and that awareness can be painful.  Reality is not to be taken lightly, as one of my favorite books states in the title, Awareness: the perils of Reality (by Fr. Anthony de Mello).  And I have an easy time ‘lying’ to myself, fooling myself into believing that ‘my’ way is the right way.  But I am also learning that I do not want to follow the ‘right’ way; I want to follow the truth.  And what is truth and what is right are not always the same thing.

Awareness burns off the dross, at high temps, leaving nothing but pure gold and all the dross floating at the top, waiting to be scooped away or completely burned off by the Spirit.  Growing in awareness – both a deeper awareness of who I am and who God is revealing himself to me as – can be like driving down a new road.  It’s unfamiliar and unknown, and the unknown can be quite disconcerting even if it is the Way I should be going.

Sometimes it feels like I’m traveling down this new road and still using old road signs.  It reminds me of the definition of ‘insanity’ – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  That road does not work and honestly just gets me more ‘lost.’  But the still, small Voice inside says “keep driving, keep going down this Way, for it is My Way.”  Eventually my eyes will adjust to the new road signs and sooner or later (hopefully sooner!), my eyes and actions will adjust to the new signs…and the New Road.

And the still, small Voice keeps saying “Don’t run from anything.”  For in truth, God is larger than my reality.  And God is loving and powerful enough to handle all of it.  Period.  

God knows how to bring me through this and show me divine love and grace in ways I could never dream.  I have said it before and I will say it again: even the best life I’ve dreamed for myself pales in comparison to the life God has in store for me.  So, I’ll keep driving, moving along slowly but surely on this Journey, becoming less and less concerned about the destination (for that is secure in God), and becoming more aware of the joy of the Journey itself.

As St. Catherine of Siena said long ago, “All the way to Heaven is Heaven.”