The Narrow Road

 

             My thoughts roam to the outside.  The new song of a persistent whippoorwill distracts me.  I keep thinking of my friends who have lost children - wondering how they are doing.  One just crossed two years, one is crossing one year tomorrow. And now I read about a family making the hard decision to pull the life support from their young son who was just having a final swim for the summer - in water where a deadly parasite waited to kill and destroy.  And their journey of grief will begin it's long search for survival. The cycle of grief starts today for them.

Isn’t it amazing how hearts do somehow survive?  We experience a great loss in our lives, wondering how we will make it through the crisis, and then we are six months along. The scar is healing on the surface, but it is deep and still aches, and we work everyday to rehabilitate ourselves, we “get away” to places that are meant to refresh and restore, but our hearts can barely keep the pace, wondering if we will ever find our way.  The road to recovery is narrow and often crowded out by the hustle and bustle of filling up each minute with life. 

Here’s a perfect example. We drove to a beach where we took our children for many years.  The roads have all changed to make way for progress.  Beach mansions have risen up in the aftermath of hurricanes and sleepy fishing villages have become palm-tree lined boulevards.  Our friends said, “Come on, we are taking you to a place you would never find on your own.”  As he turned off of the busy main road onto an unidentifiable shell- gravel lane, I wondered why I would even want to find it, but I trusted him.  And once we walked  around the corner, past the kitchen/trailer where several drowsy cats were sunning, then I understood what they wanted us to see.  A gray-weathered dock with a few tattered, faded umbrellas provided a setting of natural beauty.  Tucked away in the inlet, an old fishing camp was the backdrop for forgotten docks, now claimed by the pelicans.  I wanted to paint it-capture it somehow.  It was like Wordsworth’s words, “And then my heart with pleasure fills” as we were content just to look at the water, watch the pelicans, and wonder at the charm of it all.  It was as though the bridge to civilization was blocked from our view, and somehow time  allowed this little spot to exist for the sheer beauty, simplicity, and restorative qualities it bestowed.  It was a reminder of the way things were meant to be.

I love to be taken to a surprise place – a place that I would not find on my own, often a narrow road.  And I love the fact that our friends thought we, too, would love it.  Henri Nouwen in his book “Show Me the Way” returns again and again to that road we seek on our faith journey, finding our way to the cross.  He sends us to the passage in Matthew where Jesus tells his disciples that the “gate is small and the road narrow that leads to life." But even though it is small and narrow, everyone is invited to turn down that road. It is also a reminder how easy it is to overlook or miss the narrow road – the little, often overlooked path that takes one to a surprise place, filled with peace and calm, beauty and promise.

 

In the personal search for survival, there is a road on which we can be guided. There is a road that is often overgrown and crowded with the distractions of the day. But there is a road - a road to recovery.

 

 

 

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