Thursday, November 5, 2009

Becoming the Path

Poet Keith Waldrop wrote, “This much seems obvious, that as we move along the path, slowly but certainly the path replaces us.” I’m not sure just how obvious that is, but it is perhaps true. We become what we do. And, as the old saying goes, our deeds live after us. I suppose at one level, this could be interpreted as a threat: “Oh, no! I’d better be careful what I do!” In the Unitarian Universalist tradition, however, the idea functions more as opportunity than threat. When I am gone, it is what I have done that matters. And, today, I am what I do. The path I am moving along is replacing me. It isn’t what I’m thinking but what I am doing that is slowly adding up to what I will have been. For me, anyway, that thought helps when things get murky.

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