Walk This Way – Day Thirty-Eight

And when you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear the word behind you saying, ‘this is the way, walk in it.’ Is30:21

Getting my bearings, a sense of direction, has never been much of a problem for me. In fact, it is often easier for dyslexic processing brains to create an imaginary map, visualize space and ones place in it. I also grew up in the Mile High City – Denver, Colorado – and the mountain range was my magnetic field, the force of orientation. In this way, when we would visit friends in Colorado Springs, we traveled to higher elevations, so it felt like going north to me. I have been all over the world and can easily map north and south in my brain, but set me in my family’s home and I am upside down; north is south, south, north.

It was the same with life direction, for me. I always had a strong sense of God’s call, a sort of positively-charged particle oriented by Lorentz-esque-force electromagnetic field of the Trinity, if you will. The direction was formidable (China), and while decisions along the way were not always easy to make, they were usually evident. Until poor health interfered, disrupting a feedback loop – or so it seemed.

But in this feedback loop scenario particles can also generate new electromagnetic fields (I’m no physics expert, but I love the analogy). And one infinitesimal particle only registers – is observed – by its effects, and that, by what is being acted upon it – the compelling force. They will know you are compelled by Christ – by your love . . . They will know you are God’s – by the fruit you bear . . . .

This formation-force-field I traverse is vast, complex, beyond comprehending. I am a nearly negligible particle within it. At the same time, my place in it is not static nor is it irrelevant. My existence has an effect, carrying its own force. And while I am still uncertain about the direction I must take into 50, I am certain about the Force that acts upon it. I am equally convinced of the bountiful elements that live and move and have their beings in my proximity.

And so I wish to move in the direction that is most life giving – for me and for those around me and in the effort (energy, force) to making things right in this world. That direction is traveled best with gratitude. And I take to heart the words of Ellen Bass:

The world has need of you . . .

But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,

the earth, ever so slightly, fell

toward the apple.

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