Path to Nowhere

Some folks have asked me a fairly obvious question of late.  What do you do when you look at the path ahead and see issues with continuing down it?

I went on a two day "cabin fever" road trip to Cajun country this past weekend.  I had a list of sites I wanted to visit, one of which was Avery Island where they make my favorite hot sauce.  I arrived too early to get in the gate so I opted to spend the hour cleaning my camera and shooting some photos in lieu of returning ten miles up the road to New Iberia just to turn around.

On the bayou there were some long forgotten dock works and boardwalks that offered some great subject matter.  I am always looking for blog photos to work with down the road.  This one, above, jumped out at me when I returned home.  At first glance I wasn't particularly interested in walking to the end of it in order to get a shot of the old dock pilings.  Let's face it, two boards were missing from the middle and the rest were warped and old.  The railings were also in ill-repair, but felt sturdy, and the remaining boards on the walk, although warped, were two-by-eight and solid under my weight.  One is reminded of the saying, "No guts, no glory."

I faced the bayou on the right side and side-stepped across.  I considered myself lucky that it held, not because the water was deep, it wasn't.  Dumb-smack here didn't put the camera strap around his neck and crossed holding it in one hand.  Of course my knee-jerk reaction at slipping would have been to grab the railing with both hands, if the railing was still there.  But, like I said, the crossing went well.  The photos of the pilings were not as interesting as the walk, however.

So, what do you do when you look at the path ahead and see issues with continuing down it?  As much as I would like to recommend the "no guts, no glory" answer, one has to weigh the personal safety issues and not be what I like referring to as a poster child for birth control.  In this particular case the only risk was my pride if anyone were to see me fall in.  The risk-benefit ratio was well within my personal parameters.  One has to consider this when following their path in life.  Sometimes the path ahead looks a bit dicey and you might want to do a risk-benefit analysis to see if it's really worth continuing down this path or perhaps looking for a fork in the road.

On the other hand, as in this case, I looked ahead and saw the path ended.  There were obvious dangers to continuing down a path that, ultimately, led to nowhere.  But, at the end of this path there was a beauty I wanted to experience; something of man's history on the bayou, of his coming, living, and passing on;  questions that pique one's curiosity and stir the imagination.  Why it was here and what did it look like?  Who built it?  Was it an old road, railway trestle, or boat dock?

"...we are simply passing through history.  This is history."

-- Belloq, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981)

Even on the "path to nowhere" one can find a rare gem, a reason for the detour, the risk, one has but to look.  Open your eyes and see.  Risk is a part of our lives.  It is who we are.  It is a genetic predisposition to curiosity which God has seen fit to endow upon us.  What a waste it is not to make use of it.

I have begun to enjoy the writings of Maya Angelou, who will be sorely missed as she passed on May of this year.  I had no idea how much more she offered the world besides being an author and poet.  I'm not sure which of the following quotes from her best plays to this idea of traveling a path to nowhere, so I offer them both:

"Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your eyes to the wonder of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself." 

"If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be."

 How amazing we can be is directly proportionate to the paths we dare to travel, the risks we dare to take.  We fail, we rise, we fail again.  We constantly stumble and fall, and we constantly rise to the challenge.  This is who we are, what we are, and, most importantly, why we are.  It is through this trial and error, traveling down these "paths to nowhere," we have moved ahead as far as we have.  We will fall again, probably due to an arrogance that comes from not appreciating these paths to nowhere and what traveling down them might have taught us about our future.

Never be too proud to take the path less traveled, or traveled not at all.

Note from Pastor Tony, the founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance, as well as the author and editor of "The Path," the Congregation's official blogsite:  

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.
  

Frank Anthony Villari, Pastor