Standing at thresholds and forks in the road

If we live our lives well (at least this is the way I define “well”) then we live not in numbness and lethargy and apathy, but fully alive and feeling, aware of the sacred around us, and with an ongoing commitment to living an examined life — one centered on the presence of God, the teachings of Christ, and the power of the individual to change the world in some way, however small.  And if we live that way, we should often find ourselves standing at metaphorical thresholds and forks in the road wondering which way to move, for there should always be choices to be made. A life lived well should never be lived on autopilot. To me, the worst kind of life would be one where I felt I had no options.

So here I stand on the threshold of so many decisions and life choices, as well as facing some health challenges and life changes over which I have little or no control, at least on the surface. Of course, we all have choices to make, even if the choice is about how we accept those things that have been thrust upon us.

Obviously, the biggest threshold is one about my health. I am about to enter what will certainly be a new dimension of my life. I will leave for a while (one side of the threshold) a world of professional work, colleagues and the security of “what I know” to enter a darker of world of which I cannot fathom a glimpse – a world of hospitals and doctors and pain and discomfort. Most of all, it is a world of unknown (however hopeful) outcomes. I like to be in control and I won’t be, except over my attitude, my faith, my love of life and family.

But at the same time, I enter this world infused with a feeling that all will be made new, that perhaps this forced time of retreat and re-treating will better illuminate the path I will follow in the coming years. I can envision myself standing on this threshold, with a clear view behind me of who I am and what I do, but with the view in front of me darker and cloudier and more expansive. It is a desert, perhaps, that I must cross to see what’s on the other side of the horizon.

Despite the dark unknown, life seems full of hope and possibility right now. My most fervent prayer has always been: Show me the way and show me your will. I think where I am standing now is exactly where I am supposed to be. Robert Frost’s most famous poem, “The Road Not Taken,” has been bouncing around my head for days now:

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.

The sun is shining this second day of April, and I’m going out for a short hike in the woods near my house. Today I rejoice in the fact that “way leads on to way,” and that I don’t always know where I’m headed. Have some faith, I tell myself…

Health update: A boatload of tests yesterday to prove to the insurance company that my heart and lungs are strong enough to make me a good recipient of the stem cell transplant. We should know next week whether my sister is a match for the transplant or whether we’ll need to go to the bone marrow registry to look for a match. I’m feeling good and blood levels are slightly up. Thanks for asking…