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Rooted in Spirit - United in Love |
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Pleasant Valley Church of Religious Science |
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PASTOR’S PEN REV. PATRICK The Journey We all know the cliche "Life is a Journey." We often use it as a way of dealing with our self-image and feelings when the road takes an unexpected turn and things don’t go quite as we had planned. We also use this phrase to recognize that each arrived-at destination is rarely as we had imagined, and that even in the rare instances that it doesn’t last. In this sense, life truly is a journey a journey without destination. The Spiritual quest is often described as a "path," a path that is traversed one step at a time. There is a tendency to approach our life as if it were an object apart from ourselves, something we are able to manipulate and direct. I liken this view to the game of Ice Hockey. The elements are the Player, the Stick, the Puck and the Net. The "Player" is the planning aspect of Mind that creates our goals. The "Net" is our imagined destination or goal. The "Puck" is our momentary consciousness of the here-and-now, and the "Stick" is the arsenal of mental, emotional and physical tactics we use to move the Puck over the ice of space-time and into the net. The object of the game is to score points by getting the puck into the net to get through life with minimum pain and maximum pleasure, as if it were possible to guarantee either one.
On the ice, the problem is that there is a team of players whose sole object is to take away our puck and put it into their net. In real life, the opposing team lives primarily in our own minds but is imagined to be somewhere "out there. We pit ourselves against an imaginary opponent and miss the obvious that we are pitted against ourselves. Consider this question: if the Player is the planner and the Puck is here-and-now consciousness, are you the Player or the Puck? Remember the adage, "Life is what takes place while we’re busy making plans." In a very real sense, life happens only in the here-and-now. Spending time in our planning mode is both necessary and useful, but not if it happens at the expense of the actual experience of living and being.
Life is a journey without destination. In fact, the journey is the destination. The path is never-ending and we tread it one step at a time. The next time you are tempted to grab your stick and slap the puck into the net, pause for a moment’s reflection, take a breath, relax and simply be the Puck. Simply be Life. Simply be. By your side every step of the way, Rev. Patrick.
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