Pathways

By Reverend Doug Kraft, July, 2009

I love to walk the woods and fields along the river near our home. The paths wander and wind. Even when they seem to have a destination – like a knoll, a bend in the river or a clump of trees – the paths meander, caressing the contours of the land.

In some places, the path swerves for no discernable reason. Maybe a limb fell here. People and creatures picked their way around it wearing the grass and packing the earth into a different course. Later someone dragged the branch aside. But the path continues along its newer route.

There is history in these trails. I may never know the details, but the passage of feet is recorded here.

Highways are different. There is little record of time, no sensitive imprint of who came before – just marks of cranes, dynamite and shovels. Highways, after all, are designed to get us somewhere else quickly.

On a path, the destination is not important. The journey itself is what matters.

On a highway, the journey is an inconvenience. Every attempt is made to lessen the bother: ridges are gored, rivers are bridged, hills are leveled and sometimes mountains are punched with tunnels so we can get to the other side without being distracted by the view.

The resulting boredom invites us to turn on the radio, play a movie for the kids, listen to a book on tape or daydream about elsewhere as we zip along noticing as little as possible.

How do you want to travel? No highway is completely straight. And no path is free of destination. But how do you want to traverse the summer?

I have read books intending to get information and be done as soon as possible. And I have read books that I enjoyed so much I didn’t want them to end.

I have had conversations intending to solve an issue or get through an agenda as quickly as possible. And I have had conversations that, like a path through a meadow, wove amongst the flowers, lingered by a stream, examined a black caterpillar with orange spots and rested for a while under a tree.

Anything can be a path or a highway. When I’m tired, I can power sleep to get to the next thing. Or I can enjoy a sensuous slumber of a nap. There are jobs to be done, meals to be eaten, children to tend, chores to be done, …

Highways get things done. Paths make the doing worthwhile.

Basho once said, “Each day is a journey, and the journey itself, home.”

Summer is upon us. I wish us all fewer highways and more paths that caress the contours.

Doug