"Recalculating"

In the Gap of Dunloe, County Kerry, Ireland ©A. Rutherford

"Recalculating" was the incessant refrain from my GPS during a recent trip to Ireland.  

Ever take a wrong turn?  Ever think you knew where you were going, but somehow got distracted and got lost?

Ever think you knew what you wanted, but when you got it, it wasn’t what you thought it would be, or didn’t satisfy you in the way you longed to be fulfilled?

What do you do then?

As a culture and as individuals in that culture, we seem to be addicted to change . . . to the novel, the new and different . . . from the trendy gimmick or fashion to the artsy avant-garde,  and yet wise men have warned us that all change is not progress.  Not all roads we’re invited to take lead forward.  We’ve observed that happen in society and in our private lives again and again.  

C. S. Lewis, in discussing the concept of progress, once observed:

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start over again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

If we have, indeed, come to such a pass that the concepts of beauty and purpose, goal and design are no longer seen as relevant, it is high time to go back.” [emphasis mine]

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it.  But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it.  I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it.  Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past.  It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

-- R. S. Thomas

Jeremiah 6:16 

This is what the LORD says:

   “Stand at the crossroads and look;
   ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
   and you will find rest for your souls.
   But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

Sometimes you have to go a very long way around to come back a very short distance correctly.  But it doesn’t always have to be that circuitous.  However, you always have to start by admitting that you’ve gotten off track.

Beauty, purpose, meaning . . . these to many today are old-fashioned words.  But my hope and prayer is that others can come to see these, and all the great virtues, as just as relevant to the 21st century as ever they were.  Whatever contribution I can make to that end, whatever pebble I can drop in the stream to make ripples spread out, I want to do my small part.

Taken on my early morning walk around a local park  ©A. Rutherford

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