Every road leads somewhere 

 

We were leaving the small Spanish town of Caldas de Reis on our way to Padron. It was to be relatively short fourteen mile day.  We’d gotten a late start and felt almost giddy that our feet were strong, our bodies well rested, and our way was to be well marked. We stepped out the front door of our hotel, which had been on a noisy and busy main route through town, and and started walking. We hadn’t even consulted our map, so confident were we that we were headed in the right direction. Five or ten minutes passed. We hadn’t seen one arrow or scallop shell to mark the way. Our confidence wavered a little bit. 

 

One of us said: “Hmmm. Do you think we’re on the right path?” 

We both laughed: “Well, we’re on the right path to somewhere!” 

“I wonder where we’re going?”

“Well, we’re going wherever it is we’re going to end up!”

 

Where we “ended up” after a while, was right back at our hotel. We had begun that day by walking in a large circle!

It reminded me of the saying: ”My own best thinking got me here”.

 

I used to be convinced that there was one “right” way to do life, one “right” way to go. I called this “God’s Will”. The challenge, of course, was to figure out exactly what that was. What direction was the right one? What destination was I supposed to be shooting for? What was the correct path to get there? So linear was my thinking that when I tried to marry the “right” person, but ended up divorced, I believed that I had reached my life’s terminal dead-end. I believed, at every level of my being that I had blown my one shot at getting life right. I’m amazed and saddened when I look back now and and remember the pain I was in that my “real life” was over, having been squandered by false-steps and a huge “mistake.” I know that I actually believed that everything that came next would just be the remnants of life, the leftover debris from the real life that my God had intended for me. I had started out in one direction, reached a dead-end, stalled out and now I was to be like a fish on the shore, just flopping around until “the real end” came.  

 

Thankfully, somewhere along the way, my thinking began to change. 

 

With time I came to view that portion of my life, not as a dead-end with no meaningful path forward, but rather, as just one season of many, that I would have the opportunity to experience, and learn from. As I moved forward there would be equally important seasons, and lessons, ahead. Some have been simple, some hugely grand. Even when it has seemed that I’ve walked in circles I’ve still made progress. The Catholic priest, Richard Rohr has said that there are “no spiritual dead-ends with God”. I have a friend named Jill who says: “I’m never lost. I may not know where I’m standing but I can always see myself standing there. How can I be lost when I’m wherever I’m standing!” I think that is profound. 

 

I know now that my life has had no false starts, dead ends, or irredeemable mistakes. What if my marital path was more painful and circuitous than I had ever planned; I am wiser and more empathetic for having made that journey. So what if Anne and I started out that morning in Caldas de Reis only to end up back where we had just finished breakfast? We saw, and experienced new things, back alleys, store fronts, and old women sweeping door-stoops, that we would have otherwise missed. We had ten minutes to laugh and learn a lesson that a “straighter path” would have never revealed. We were always on the road to somewhere, and it was always going to deliver us where we ended up. As Jill says: “How could I ever be lost as long as I can see myself in relation to everything else around me?” 

 

Reflections 

 

There is huge value in being present to where we are, and where we’ve been, instead of getting too caught up in worrying about where we thought we needed to go. Every moment we are somewhere valuable. I want to remember this at every level of my being. I want to remember, and reflect this for my daughter, and my sons, and everyone else I love when they worry that they have taken a “terminally wrong turn”. There aren’t any false starts, dead-ends, and failures as long as we notice what we have learned, and how we have changed for having lived through any experience. Even when we end up right back where we started, we can be wiser and stronger for having taken the lap.

 

    1.  Is there a season in your own past that causes you to live with ongoing regret, remorse, guilt, shame, or resentment?  

    2.  If you were released from your pain could you more honestly access how something positive in yourself has come from having lived through that experience?