Brian’s Reflection: Friday, March 12, 2010

Our battered suitcases were piled
on the sidewalk again; we had longer
ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.

Jack Kerouac, American author and
“hippie”, born on this date, 1922


“The road is Life.” A never more mystical or “spiritual” phrase was ever spoken. Immediately Tolkien comes to mind, in the “Lord of the Rings”, a song sung, I think, by Bilbo: (I’ve read the damn Trilogy at least 10 times; you’d think I’d know!)

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.


“The Road” is a magical, powerful, evocative symbol - for “Life”!! All Journeys are a sign to us that Life is found, illuminated, defined, understood, in the process, not in the End. Here is the problem with the kind of Christianity (or any other religion) that makes the End and not the Journey to be the Meaningful Path.

I have come to the place in my Life where this philosophy/theology settles at the core.

Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

I don’t need to know the “I cannot say”. It is irrelevant to me. I do not live my Life in order to achieve some other “place”. I live my Life in order to make every moment of it vibrate and sing with Wonder and Joy and Pleasure and Compassion and Kindness and Justice. If there is an Afterlife, the criterion for it’s integrity is the same as here in Time and Space. Not known here, not known then.

I am thrilled by the moments when I find my/our battered suitcases piled on the sidewalk again! I know intuitively that I am about to enter deeper into the Mystery.

Brian+