Friday, August 10, 2007

Friday’s thoughts

Some people display great courage and step out in faith even when they don’t know where the road will lead them. It is easier to take a safer route, but choosing the safer route may not the right thing to do.  For example, white people who stood in solidarity with African Americans during the Southern Freedom movement in the 50s and 60s.  There are many examples of folks who crossed the ‘color’ line to support the cause of equality for African Americans.

 

 

These examples show us that the normal mapping out of our lives often doesn’t call for stepping into a dangerous or less traveled path, but our faith in God, our desire for ‘truth’ and ‘honor’ and standing up for the other person, places us on a different path.  That path is a struggle, but it is one that, as Christians, we should not ignore.  I am reminded of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”

 

 

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

 

And sorry I could not travel both              

 

And be one traveler, long I stood            

 

And looked down one as far as I could  

 

To where it bent in the undergrowth;           

 

               

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,        

 

And having perhaps the better claim,    

 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;              

 

Though as for that the passing there      

 

Had worn them really about the same,         

 

               

 

And both that morning equally lay          

 

In leaves no step had trodden black.      

 

Oh, I kept the first for another day!        

 

Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 

 

I doubted if I should ever come back.            

 

               

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

 

Somewhere ages and ages hence:          

 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— 

 

I took the one less traveled by,

 

And that has made all the difference.            

 

 

When does our life mapping take us down the safer road and when does it take us down the road less traveled?

 

 

What are your experiences with choosing a path? What are your experiences with choosing to do something that was right even though your life was made more difficult because of it?

 

 

I would love to hear from you. Please email your comments to me at pameverhart@fcfumc.net, or if you feel comfortable with your thoughts being posted, put them here by clicking the comments link below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pam Everhart

 

Pastor

 

First UMC

 

1005 Stover Street

 

Fort Collins, CO 80524

 

970.482.2436

 

pameverhart@fcfumc.net

 

 

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