pilgrimage - day #10

moments of devotion:
"May I recognize paths that divert me from my true goals and travel only the roads that offer me wisdom, insight, and spiritual growth."

How easy does that sound?!  To start a path knowing whether it was the right one would make life so easy.  Maybe the statement above refers to leaving a path when it is obviously diverting you from the right path.  Of course I've been blinded by paths MANY times in my life, so I'm not sure I always see the correct course even half-way down the diverted path.  I also believe sometimes we need to deviate from the path...making the journey more interesting.

There is a poem by Robert Frost that I absolutely love.

The Road Not Taken
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.

So I'd rather take the path that weaves in and out.  I think it helps to determine the journey is on the right road.  If you didn't know the wrong roads or allowed yourself time to deviate on the journey; how could you know for certain you were on the right path?

The author talks about "passing fashions of the religious times."  I find this phrase hilarious.  I have searched for years, wandering and wondering where I was supposed to land.  I am the type of person always looking for the "what is next" project.  However, since I have been studying the Bible I have been less project oriented and more people oriented.  I am looking at a bigger picture and less concerned with daily activities and road blocks that can stop me from moving forward.  All of this has helped with my anxieties and feelings of being out of control.  Knowing that I only have so much control is easy to understand.  Of course relinquishing the desire to try to be in complete control is not possible at this point.  However, I am enjoying the process a lot more than I was previously.

I am proud to be taking the road less traveled, are you?

Today's scripture

Psalms 141:1-4 (The Message)
God, come close.  Come quickly!
Open your ears - it's my voice you're hearing!
Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising; 
my raised hands are my evening prayers. 
Post a guard at my mouth, God, 
set a watch at the door of my lips. 
Don't let me so much dream of evil
or thoughtlessly fall into bad company.
And these people who only do wrong - 
don't let them lure me with their sweet talk!