Pathways

A couple of weeks ago in church we heard the familiar tale of one of the most famous journeys ever undertaken. A long time ago, in a land far away from here, three wise men traveled a great distance to worship a child. The details of their trip are not recorded, but I can imagine that it was long, exhausting, and…indirect. I somehow doubt that their trip went too smoothly, and I am quite certain that it took them to a place – literally and figuratively – that they did not expect. For how could it not? It brought them to such a foreign land, with a radically different culture, where they experienced divine incarnation. Now how’s that for a road trip?

It’s interesting to think of our lives in this way - as a wondering journey, with some vague and abstract guide, leading us on to some foreign place. And what will we find? And how will it change us? Will we be so lucky as to encounter the divine along the way?

The great comfort of any journey is knowing that others have gone on before. Things are somehow less scary when we think we’re not alone, or at the least that the emotions and fears we’re experiencing are not totally unique. It’s comforting – don’t you think? – to pause and realize that others have done this before. A class in school, or a move, or a surgical residency…others have taken this path before. And made it. And the journey at the end of life – the pathway into death – I guess that’s the journey none of us really want to take. But as my friend’s father said at his wife’s funeral: how great the comfort is, knowing that our Lord has traveled there before.

I think about death often. I guess it’s because of the work I do, and that death is so prevalent around me. I think of my patients journeys into death, and what a wondering and twisted road it must have been – all the more twisted because somehow I became a part of it. I ended up being a part of their story, albeit at the end.

Today I told someone she was going to die. She is seventy-two, has five children, and yet I doubt that even one month ago she imagined she’d be sitting in that tiny hospital room she was sharing with someone else, with the curtain half-drawn and the TV next door still on, listening to some young guy like me tell her how mortal her condition is. Some journey. But then, in my mind…the knowledge and comfort that so many others – including our Lord! – have traveled this road before keeps me from breaking down. I pray that it brings us all peace, and that the journey – with all it’s indirection – leads us to encounter the divine.