As we wander though our journey We cross many paths not our own. But all paths are at the beginning unknown to us. Think of the quandary we would be in if the choice of a path was ours to make! As all paths are unknown to us in the beginning We can hardly be said to have any real choice. We pick what looks good to us but picking isn't a choice, to have choice one must have fore knowledge...yes? One must know where a path leads. We can rough out an approximation when speaking vocational.. Take some science classes, become a doctor. No one gets there by accident, hard word and a inhuman tenacity are the prerequisites of medicine. But what about the inward journey? The search for happiness. The need of a personal understanding of ones life. Here there are few certainties and many paths that are not our own. And countless ways to go astray. So question becomes What we may use as a lodge star. to point out the sure path, the safe path. How to free one self of anger and the darkness that surrounds us that we might stand in the light. Few really have happy childhoods. There is a darkness that surrounds us. We collect injuries and betrayals we lose love we thought was our own. We commit sins against those we love and must carry that burden. Where to stand to find the light? A magnificent tool was crafted by an unseen hand. The same hand placed that tool within our uneasy reach. We know of it but hesitate to pick it up. How should we use it? There is so much for it to do. Should we expect one tool to fix it all? It is within our reach, but we must reach for it. We cannot tell anyone of it. Until we use it nothing makes much sense. But every time we pick it we grow closer to our selves. "How about if I only use it a little? Then you will only be a little free.You will only know a little love, but the little love you know will be for the sake of having picked it up. But it's real function is to transform the entirety of your world. We must learn to give what we have received, forgiveness.To abide in forgiveness is to live a forgiving life. Forgiveness is what always is. To abide within it's grace is the essence of the spiritual life. For we come to love those we have forgiven and by forgiving, others may come to love us. Why was I not annihilated the first time I told my mother "I hate you!?";O) Forgiveness is the lubricant that allows relationship to recover and attain renewal. Forgiveness gives love the power to over look and to forget, that love may become without limit. In forgiveness we find a new day every day. And let's just once admit it. Without forgiveness this world could not go on. Love would slowly die with every mistake we make bitterness would overwhelm our friendships and we would surely come to despise ourselves. But forgiveness is like a two edge sword, it cuts both ways, to forgive is to be forgiven. To forgive is to stand in the light and not be ashamed. To forgive cuts though all anger and makes silent all complaints. "To understand all is to forgive all." True. But higher and more blessed it is to forgive what we do not understand. For such forgiveness reaches into another's darkness and brings them light. "Father forgive us for what we must do you forgive us and we'll forgive you and we'll both go fishing in the morning." John Prine .
