Celebrating the Journey

As I sat beside the Football field my grandkids were playing hard. I was loving what I was watching. Just over from me was my mom – 87 years old and wrapped warmly in her green blanket on the cold fall day. In front of us was my 9 year old granddaughter running hard with all her padding on and the shinny white helmet bobbing.

Three worlds apart, three different journeys to say the least… My age is 64 and the years have been crammed full of many things – good experiences and not so good. My mom is the same. This past week was her wedding anniversary – the 65th I think. For 21 years now she has been alone. Many good memories and many not so good.

Emma bolts down the field chasing one of the boys on the other team. She has 9 years of memories – most are nothing but good. Three worlds apart. But before she is 87, she will see her great grandmother die, along with the rest of her grandparents, mom and dad. There will be hundreds upon hundreds of wonderful blessings coming her way. She may well sit wrapped in a blanket and remember the very old people in her life so long ago.

Today I dreamed of my own days of running and chasing another boy down the field as he carried the ball too. Great Grandma was smiling as she watched the fire of her great granddaughter.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said…
It seems as if the Deity dressed each soul which he sends into nature in certain virtues and powers not communicable to other men, and sending it to perform one more turn through the circle of beings, wrote “Not Transferable” and “Good for this trip only” on these garments.

William Bridges (in The Way of Transitions) quoted Emerson and then added…
FIRST, every journey is a round trip that does not end when you reach your imagined destination, but only after a return trip where you bring back whatever you gained and with its help transform here into what you have been seeking.

SECOND, the journey experience exists at every level – from that of the whole lifetime to that within every transition we make. It may even be that this “whole lifetime” is simply one of those little transitions within some larger cycle of existence.

THIRD, it is the being on the path – this way – that has the effect upon us, not the steps we take on getting to the path’s destination.
Wow! How true these words are as they sink in slowly.

My path that led me to the side of the Football field today to watch 9 year olds run like crazy… has been an interesting journey to say the least. I am on a path…not the one that I thought I would be on 55 years ago…but it is my path with all the hooks and crooks and smooth sailing stretches… it is my transitions…

For you…
Have you ever thought about the time you were 9 years old and what you dreamed about doing someday? Now look at what happened along the way. Would you change anyone area? Not likely – or if you did you would never have had one little bit of what you have now… it would have never happened.

Today with God’s help I am going to celebrate the journey one more time. Oh what a day it has been… and tomorrow will be even greater.

How about you?

~ Murray Lincoln ~