“Traveler, there is no road; you make the road by walking.”
- Antonio Machado
Did you ever have one of those days when the same message
kept appearing to you in different forms? In these past few days this one
march-forth-y (c’mon, if I can make up a national holiday, I can certainly make
up words to go along with it) message keeps occurring for me. In the spirit
of serendipity I will share it for your consideration.
Yesterday, I was watching an amazing documentary, Rise and
Dream (http://www.riseanddream.org)
about these young people in the Philippines who set out to put on a concert. In
an early scene they are scouting the area where the stage is to be built. It is
an overgrown mess of a field. Someone asks, “Where is the path?” The answer
comes, “There is no path—you make the path.” In this scene, it is literally
true. They have to make their own way through the brush in the field—and avoid
the dangerous copperhead snakes that infest it. But this statement also has profound implications for these
young people who are working mightily to help pull themselves and their
families out of poverty. They are creating their own life path.
That message was reinforced today, when I encounter a quote
placed quietly at the end of an email. You know so many people place quotes in
their signature line—but I don’t always read them. This one caught my eye,
because it echoed the theme of the message I heard in the film. (For all I know, the person in the film may
have been paraphrasing this actual quote.) “Traveler, there is no road; you
make the road by walking.” – Antonio Machado. What an extraordinary thought! This takes the first quote one step further (no pun intended.) The road is made through the act of walking.
Instead of looking for the road—we are already on the road, by virtue of our choices and direction and ACTION.
This brings me to the third message that came today in a
blog I receive from the Center for Action and Contemplation. (https://cac.org/) Fr. Richard Rohr says, “You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much
as you live your way into a new way of thinking.” In other words, sometimes an
inner experience prompts one to action, and sometimes an action reveals an
inner experience along the journey. As someone who has the habit of over-thinking things,
I wonder if I could choose to act and live my way into a new way of thinking. I
just love the possibilities this idea opens up for me!
To borrow from the Nike
tag-line, “Just Do It—And Become It.”
Marching forth on the road of my own making!
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