<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">There seems to be some discussion going on about 75th birthdays.<div class="">Here’s a piece that I received today that may be appropriate.</div><div class="">Allan</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class="">This e-mail is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list. If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns, send a blank e-mail (no message) to <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:softedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);">softedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca</a>. Or write to me personally, <u class=""><span style="color: blue;" class=""><a href="mailto:jimt@quixotic.ca" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: blue;" class="">jimt@quixotic.ca</span></a></span></u> or <u class=""><span style="color: blue;" class=""><a href="mailto:rewrite@shaw.ca" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: blue;" class="">rewrite@shaw.ca</span></a></span></u></i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class=""> If your reply to anything in this column is blocked, use either address to write to me directly.</i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class=""> </i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class=""> </i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class="">Thursday February 18, 2021</i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class=""> </i></div><h1 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 16pt; font-family: 'Arial Black', sans-serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">Trying to see the road ahead</span></h1><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Driving to town the other day, I ran into a patch of valley fog.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Suddenly, clear air and bright sky vanished. I was swaddled in translucent cheesecloth. The centreline’s yellow tape scrolled out ahead of me, measuring time and distance to nowhere. The paved road, grey and gritty close up, merged into mist, dissolving into invisibility.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> I felt as if I was driving down a metaphor.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Because, only moments before, I had been pondering the process of aging. Another colleague from former years had died. I was uncomfortably reminded that my years were numbered. I can’t know what the number is, but certainly fewer than it was.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> The road ahead felt uncertain, unsure.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </p><h2 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Arial Black', sans-serif;" class="">Hindsight</h2><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> But my rear-view mirror works perfectly.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> When I look backwards, I can see clearly the stepping stones -- I called them jobs -- which led progressively towards more responsibility, more challenge, more status.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Each one was my rock, my foundation, my world.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> For a while.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Then my wheels rolled on. I left behind that cocoon and the people in it.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> The road was not always smooth. There were bumps and potholes, bogs and marshes, where my solid footing slid into mush and my wheels spun helplessly. Years where conflict and/or loss splattered my licence plate with mud, miring my identity.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> But there were also lily pads that I danced across. Lotus blossoms beneath an archway of rainbows. Fragile, fleeting joys that lit up the night with fireworks.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Unfortunately, rear-view hindsight doesn’t translate into clear view ahead.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </p><h2 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Arial Black', sans-serif;" class="">Wrong format</h2><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> I tried translating my thoughts into a poem. I hadn’t written a poem for months, and this metaphor seemed a natural. But the words didn’t want to come. Like a frightened turtle, they kept their moving parts tucked inside a shell.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Then friend and fellow writer Jim Henderschedt, a retired Lutheran pastor in the U.S., forwarded a prayer by Thomas Merton. Merton is, of course, the American Trappist monk renowned for his writings about integrating eastern mysticism and Catholic spirituality.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> I don’t adulate Merton, as some seem to. (Maybe I’m just envious.) But his prayer resonated with what I had been trying to express:</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;" class=""><i class="">My Lord God<br class="">I have no idea where I am going.<br class="">I cannot see the road ahead of me and I do not know for certain where it will end.<br class="">Nor do I know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.<br class="">But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.<br class="">And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.<br class="">I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.<br class="">And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.<br class="">Therefore I will trust you.<br class="">Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.<br class="">Amen</i></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> Maybe my mistake was trying to turn my metaphor into a poem. Maybe I should have tried for a prayer.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 21.45pt 0.0001pt 0cm; line-height: 12.266667366027832px; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-AU" class="">*****************************************</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 21.45pt 0.0001pt 0cm; line-height: 12.266667366027832px; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-AU" class="">Copyright © 2021 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 21.45pt 0.0001pt 0cm; line-height: 12.266667366027832px; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-AU" class=""> To comment on this column, write <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jimt@quixotic.ca" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(149, 79, 114);">jimt@quixotic.ca</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 21.45pt 0.0001pt 0cm; line-height: 12.266667366027832px; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-AU" class="">*****************************************</span></div></div></body></html>