The Road Well-Traveled, Part IV

 We all walk the same road—it is the road of life.   I call it “The Road Well-Traveled” because everybody is traveling  it!  Everybody began the trek down this road when they first entered this life and the road ends when life ends.  Every person “grows up” walking this road.  Everyone grows old walking this road.  We all walk it together—this road of life.  The road takes us through valleys and shadows, into bright sunshine and joy, through deep waters, scorched plains and bountiful plains, and up mountains that seem impossible to scale.  The road takes us through all of this and more.

A common comfort given those on this road and facing its various obstacles is, “You are not alone.”  This is true.  We are not alone, even when we feel that we are.  Why?  Because everybody is walking this same road with us.  Everybody goes the same way we go.  Every person experiences the same valleys, shadows, sunshine and joy.  Every person passes through the deep waters; every person knows the scorched plain, the bountiful plain, and the unscalable mountain.  That is where the road goes and since everybody is walking this same road we cannot ever say we are alone in our pilgrimage.  Our brothers and sisters, wherever they live in this whole wide world, whatever the color of their skin, their gender, their religious convictions, their political bent, walk with us and we with them.  There is no way any of us can claim that we are alone on this road trip.

Almost six weeks ago my wife’s journey on this road well-traveled came to an end.  I like to think that she is now traveling a new and different road, perhaps a smoother and less stressful one.  I have often referred to our leaving the road well-traveled as a graduation from one worn-out road to a new one—similar to graduating from elementary school and moving on to high school.  

I am not alone in my grief on the road well-traveled.  Many of my brothers and sisters know, or have known, this same grief.  One week and a day after losing my beloved Cher, I received a call from my older brother.  His wife had died that morning.  “Grief compounded,” my daughter-in-law said.  Think of the road you are on and those traveling it with you. Think of all those who have suffered the loss of a loved one.  Think of the “grief compounded” during the past year of the Covid pandemic—not only here in the US, but around the globe.  Brothers and sisters everywhere are walking this road with you and me. 

Remembering James Langston Hughes

 James Langston Hughes was the American Poet Laureate of Harlem.  He was born February 1, 1902 and died May 22, 1967.  

“I knew only the people I had grown up with…,” he once wrote.  Isn’t that true of all of us?  We only the know the people we grew up with, and who were they?   Did you grow up in a rural, urban, suburban area where only certain kinds of people surrounded you?  I did.  Hughes finished his sentence…”I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach.”

My favorite Hughes poem is “Harlem.”  It goes like this:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

He wrote another poem that seems appropriate for today.  “I Dream a World” speaks to our time.

I dream a world where man

No other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth

And peace its paths adorn

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet freedom’s way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul

Nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white, 

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl,

Attends the needs of all mankind-

Of such I dream, my world!

If we cannot bring into being this kind of world, if the dream is deferred (as it has always been deferred) our world will dry up like a raisin in the sun…or it will fester like a sore…and stink like rotten meat…or explode!  

A Grief Observed

 C.S. Lewis wrote a collection of reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife in 1960.  These reflections were put in a book, “A Grief Observed,” which was published in 1961.  

Here are some of my rambling reflections at this moment.  

I have found comfort in my own experience of bereavement from the many who have called, sent cards, notes, and letters expressing their love for Cher and their concern for me.  Thank you so much.

I’ve also found comfort in the words of others.  Frederick Buechner’s  words in The Sacred Journey have been a tremendous help:  

“Whenever and however else they may have come to life (since they left us), it

is beyond doubt that they live still in us.  Death can never put an end to our 

relationship with them.  Memory is more than looking back to a time that is no

longer; it is a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything

that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that

still is.”

The famous sermon by Arthur John Gossip, “When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” which I’ve read and commented on so many times through the years speaks to me now as it never spoke before. 

The hymns of the Christian faith have been helpful, too.  Cher asked that the hymn, “Abide With Me,” be played at her Celebration of Life service.  The words come alive for me in a new way as I listen to Susan Boyle sing them. You can find her rendition on YouTube.  The last nine words keep ringing in my head:  “In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

Wherever we traveled around this wonderful world, Cher would always do a little dance for the camera.  She danced in New Orleans, in Spain, Italy, Greece, and at the ancient pyramids of Egypt—almost everywhere we visited.  The photo shows her dancing in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2009.   I am comforted by the words of the hymn, “Lord of the Dance:” and its refrain:  “Dance, then, wherever you may be (France, Austria, England—wherever); I am the Lord of the Dance, said He.  And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be (in joy, in sorrow—wherever, whatever), and I’ll lead you all in the dance, said He.”  Which calls to mind another hymn that I trust speaks true: “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land…I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful hand.”

Give Them The Flowers Now

 “I expect to pass through this world but once, any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show to my fellow creature, let me do it now.  Let me not defer or withhold it, I shall not pass this way again.”  (Stephen Grellet)

Many years ago I heard a sermon delivered by an Air Force chaplain based on Mark 14:3-9, the story of the woman who came to Jesus in Bethany with a “very costly perfume” and poured the oil over his head.  Jesus’ disciples complained about the waste, but Jesus said, “Let her alone.  Why must you make trouble for her?  It is a fine thing she has done for me.  You have the poor among you always, and you can help them whenever you like; but you will not always have me.”

Some people use the story to suggest that the “poor” will always be among us and we’ll never solve that social problem, thus missing the point Jesus was attempting to make:  “you will not always have me.”

We will not always have our grandparents, our parents, our brothers, our sisters, our loved ones with us.  At this stage of the journey I know this as a fact of life.  Yesterday I lost my wife of fifty-seven years to ovarian cancer. 

The chaplain closed his sermon with a poem—a poem which I have used many times.  Years ago, a friend, hearing me use the poem in a sermon, copied it in calligraphy and framed it for me.  It has had a place in every one of my cubicles (study, office) since, so I see it and read it every day.  I read it again this morning.  Fifty-seven years we shared struggles and strivings, fifty-seven years of cares and tears, fifty-seven years of frowns, furrows, and fears, fifty-seven years of laughter, joy, love, ice cream cones, travel, and so much more.  What about the flowers?  Yes, we gave one another the flowers in the midst of it all.  How I wish I had given more!  I encourage you “to give them the flowers now."

Here are the struggles and striving;

Here are the cares and the tears;

Now is the time to be smoothing 

The frowns and furrows and fears.

What to closed ears are kind sayings

What to hushed heart, is deep vow?

Naught can avail after parting,

So give them the flowers now.

(Anonymous)

With grandson Austin--twenty-four years ago!

Pondering The Road Well-Traveled (Part III)

 What do I remember when I walk back through the years on the Road Well-Traveled?  I remember my early heroes who traveled that road with me.  Gene Autry and Roy Rogers walked the road of life back then.  My horse was not “Champion” or “Trigger,” but the porch bannister or the arm of the large porch rocking chair.  I rode along with Gene and Roy with my play pistols belted around my waist on many a wild adventure—righting wrong and doing right.  I wanted to wear a “white” hat like Gene and Roy—the white hat that never falls off.  All the bad guys wore black hats.  Whenever a struggle took place the bad guy’s hat fell off—but the good guy never lost his white hat. I wanted to wear a white hat that always stayed in place in every struggle that came my way.  

Other heroes were walking with me along the road back then.  There was Jim, the mailman, who always waved and paid attention to me.  Churchill, Willie, and Julie were on the road then..  Churchill was a family friend who never ignored me and always made me feel special.  Willie ran the garage nearby and Julie was his helper.  They patched many a bicycle tire for me and provided the “inner” tubes  for floating down the creek in the summer time. Sometimes Willie would take me fishing or help me build a go-cart or make fish hooks from his supply of copper wire. Looking back from where I am on the road now, I can see that they were just ordinary guys, but to me they will always be extraordinary. 

How significant was the porch bannister or the arm of the rocking chair and the white hat? Did that childhood imagining mold and shape me?  Of course it did!  Everything on the road well-traveled affects us, influences us, and guides us.  Jim, the mailman, Churchill, Willie and Julie were traveling companions on the road well-traveled.  How fortunate for me that we walked together for a time.  They left the road of life many years ago.  I miss them.

I have had to walk the road without them for many years now, but the road of life goes on  through the years, through the struggles, joys, the hopes and dreams.  The road is packed with other people, new companions, new heroes.   We never walk the road of life alone.  It is the road well-traveled.

“Before the Roman came to Rye or out of Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles around the shire,…

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread…”

The Road Well-Traveled (Part II)

 I’m still pondering the road well-traveled.  There may be a Part III—or there may not.  I have no idea how long this “pondering" will go on.

All of us walk the same road—the well-traveled road of life. Since the world began every human being has walked this same road. Deep are the furrows, rough is the path, worn down by the imprint of countless feet, dampened by many a tear, churned up by a myriad of worries and troubles, and occasionally made smooth by the joys experienced across all time. It is a road well-traveled.  Every traveler on this road has cried, laughed, eaten, hurt, worried, and died.  There are no exceptions.

In youthful arrogance we sometimes think we choose our own road, but from the moment of our birth, we are placed on this common road, not by choice, but by Life itself.  We may choose our own detours along the way, taking a left turn here or a right turn there, but all of these unique individual turns and twists remain part of the main road—the road well-traveled.

It gives me some comfort to know that my parents and grandparents walked this road I am walking and their grandparents before them. It helps to know that whoever may read this blog is walking that road too. There are no lone travelers on the road.  We walk the road always in the company of those who walked it before us and those who walk it with us now. We are never really alone.  This road is a well-traveled road.

All of us walk this same road no matter the color of our skin, no matter our privilege or disadvantage, no matter our circumstance.  Such distinctions make little difference on this road.  If we are alive, if we are human, we travel this road.  It is a road well-traveled.

“I have always known,” wrote Ariwara No Narihira in the 9th Century,

 “that at last I would take this road, 

but yesterday I did not know it would be today.”  

The Road Well-Traveled (Part I)

 Today I want to write about the road of life—not M. Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Traveled,” a theme he borrowed from Robert Frost’s wonderful poem by the same name—but the road of common life that every single person walks.  It is the Road Well-Traveled because everybody is on it!

I sometimes think of this well-traveled road as a weary, dreary, cheery, tearful, fearful road because it is just that!  Life is not a rose garden—and even if it were, there are few rose bushes that do not grow thorns. But life isn’t a rose garden.  Some think “living” with Jesus is a rose garden, but it isn’t.  The night in the peaceful garden of Gethsemane was followed by ridicule, scorn, a crown of thorns and a cross.  The well-traveled road is tough.  It is troublesome.  It is the road of life—my life, your life, everybody’s life.  

The disciples of Jesus walked a weary, dreary, cheery, tearful, fearful Emmaus Road centuries ago.  As they walked along they talked among themselves about all that had happened to them and around them.  We walk that same weary, dreary, cheery, tearful, fearful road today.  Just as the disciples talked of their yesterdays on the road,  so we, too, talk of our yesterdays.  We ponder, as they pondered, the meaning of it all—all the happenings, all the coincidences, all the stuff of life.   The Emmaus Road the disciples of Jesus walked is the same road we’ve walked “afoot and lighthearted” since life began.  It is, as Whitman expressed it:

  “an open road:” which we travel “healthy, free, the world before me.  The long

brown path before me leading me wherever I choose…Strong and content 

I travel an open road.”  

That is how the journey begins on the road well-traveled.  But, as the years go by, the road twists around horseshoe curves, climbs many a steep hill, and winds its way through dark shadowed valleys as well as sunlit plains and under spacious skies.  No longer is it a “long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose.”  Rather the road becomes a weary, dreary, cheery, tearful, fearful road, leading us into places we do not wish to go.  It is a road we would not choose.

G.K. Chesterton wrote “The Rolling English Road” and suggested that the English roads were made by those who stopped by the pub for a few drinks and then staggered home.  

    “Before the Roman came to Rye or out of Severn strode,

    The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

    A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles around the shire,…

    A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread…”

The Road Well-Traveled has been formed by all those who came before. (drunk or sober), and is being formed by all of us at the moment, and will be reformed by those who travel it after us.  

Liam, our granddaughter Katie's husband, 

enabled me to travel some of those 

rolling English roads a few years ago.