On a Path Unknown

Mimsy and I  are pretty boring. There is not a lot of variety to our walks. We reach the end of our driveway and go left or right, maybe throw in the occasional side-street, but we stick to the familiar routes … and that’s okay. There is a comfort in traveling known paths. Mimsy knows the telephone poles and tree trunks that yield the best scents, which dogs have come and gone along this way. I think about my neighbors as we pass their houses. I know where to watch for uneven slabs of sidewalk and fallen sweet-gum balls. Everything does not have to be an adventure. For that we have life.

You don’t have to walk this planet very long before you understand that (in spite of our best intentions and plans) life just rolls our in front of you. It’s as if you have stepped on a moving sidewalk that has lost all its safety mechanisms. We wonder whose hand is on the control as the path speeds past vacations and slows to a crawl during difficult times.

We don’t move down the path as ballet dancers or figure skaters. We bumble. We stumble. We fall on our asses … a lot. But we pick ourselves up and keep going. We rinse and repeat and if we are paying attention, we learn something along the way. We learn that we have no control over the events that sweep by us, we only have control on how we respond to those events. We learn that we fail in that regard too. We learn that we are not saints, asking for forgiveness and resolving to do better the next time. Life rolls out in front of us.

It is a very messy pilgrimage.

We look at other travelers and try to gauge their journey … is it smoother than ours, is it rougher? We see people win the lottery, and others get cancer. We see bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people and vice-versa.

Our inclination is to channel our inner five-year-old, cross our arms, stamp our feet, and yell as loudly as we can, “IT’S NOT FAIR!”

Life is not fair. If you are a parent, chances are you have used that phrase with your children. Chances are, they looked at you having no perspective of what you were taking about. Give them a few years.

Life is not fair, and that’s okay.

Fairness implies justice. Justice is harsh, absolute and unforgiving. I know myself too well, I don’t want justice.

I much prefer grace and mercy.

Poppy