Hi folks, welcome to today's blog. Come
on in and find a comfy place to sit! My name is Wayne and I’ll be your host today as we pursue a road less traveled.
I love to read. I read all kinds of things; short stories,
novels, essays, blogs, news, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc. In fact, I’ll
read just about anything, but most of all I enjoy reading about ideas, especially
those ideas at the edge of human experience and understanding. Sometimes, I
look back to see how we got to the place we’re at and wonder what would have
happened if we’d taken another route.
Today we’re going to spend a little time
with one of those roads less traveled. I want to explore further the idea of
eternal existence.
The
Road Not Taken
by
Robert Frost
Two
roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And
sorry I could not travel both
And
be one traveler, long I stood
And
looked down one as far as I could
To
where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then
took the other, as just as fair,
And
having perhaps the better claim,
Because
it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though
as for that the passing there
Had
worn them really about the same,
And
both that morning equally lay
In
leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh,
I kept the first for another day!
Yet
knowing how way leads on to way,
I
doubted if I should ever come back.
I
shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere
ages and ages hence:
Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I
took the one less traveled by,
And
that has made all the difference.
One
of my favorite poems and dearly loved by many around the world especially
matches my mood today. I have always assumed that this poem was about Mr. Frost’s
nostalgic rumination over what might have been if he made different decisions
in life. I was wrong. In fact, Frost wrote this poem to tease his friend, critic
Edward Thomas, who accompanied him often on hour-long walks through the
English countryside. Evidently Thomas had trouble choosing which path to take
when they came upon a divergence of ways and would often later regret not
taking the other path thinking it might have been a better walk. David Orr
writes in depth of this in his essay entitled, “The Road Not Taken: The Poem
Everyone Loves and Everyone Gets Wrong” which is posted at poets.org.
When I think of my life, where I came
from, and where I am now, I often wonder “what if”. It’s almost as if I see my
life’s path spread out before me in a long zig-zag route much like a line
representing an old country road on a map. Each bend in the path represents a
time when I chose between alternate possibilities and each one made a huge
difference in where I ended up in the end. And now I wonder, even as did Mr.
Thomas, what would that path look like if I had chosen differently at each of
those bends? Quickly, I realize that, considering the countless number of
decision points I’ve passed through and the fact that every possible path
continuing on from every decision point also leads to countless numbers of additional
branches until the accumulation of lines representing all possible life paths
blends together in a solid black patch. I can no longer follow the direction of
any individual path. Then the patch begins to sort itself out, opening up
gradually to individual lines again until, as each line comes to an end, there
are only a few paths left and those few dwindle to none. All of my possible
lives have come to an end. My life is no more.
But, is that all there is?
I’m convinced there’s more than this.
Perhaps it’s a matter of faith. Either I am or I am not. The fact that I’m
speaking my thoughts here and now convinces me that I am. Some will say that is
blasphemy, that only God is, and that I may be in the process of becoming. To
me, that’s just tiptoeing around to avoid insulting God. I prefer to, as Thomas
Jefferson said “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every
fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than
that of blindfolded fear.”
The question is did I exist before I
was born and will I still exist after I die? Does it even make sense to talk
about past, present, and future in terms of existence outside the bounds of
this present reality? I am not a materialist, i.e., one who believes in nothing
beyond matter, energy, and their interaction. It seems to me that the “I” in I
am, my soul, exists within my physical body but does not depend on that body
for its existence. To the contrary, my soul interjected into this four
dimensional perspective we call reality gives form to the body and mind that
houses me. Take away the soul and the body is no more. Take away the body and
the soul exists still.
Some say, and this makes sense to me,
that the soul is a small piece, a spark if you will, of God. I can see where that
description can be adopted based on a reading of Genesis 2:7 (New International Reader's Version). “Then the
Lord God formed a man. He made him out of the dust of the ground. God breathed
the breath of life into him. And the man became a living person.”
I’ve
said all of this to come to this point. I believe that the real me existed
before the start of life in this realm and the real me will go on once I finish
here. In a sense, from this earthly viewpoint, I have always been and I will
always be. The fault in this reasoning lies, I think, in this. Time is only a
part of this world/ universe. It began at the creation event and it will cease
at the annihilation event (if one exists). I think before I was born I existed
outside of time and I will return to that existence after this life. In the
understanding of this world then I have an eternal existence. From the view of
that higher realm it is enough to say “I am”.
Thanks for stopping by folks. Please come again and we’ll look
elsewhere in this wonderful world of ideas. As always, may God bless you and
yours!
