A journey to be…

 

 A journey to be…

Life is a journey: from birth to death; from immaturity to maturity; from simplicity to complexity; from imperfection to perfection; from sin to holiness; from earth to sky; from world to heaven; and from humanity to divinity. This journey is not easy one as we encounter, internally and externally, many stumbling blocks, many hurdles, and many challenges on our path. Therefore, a journey needs a real and serious preparation.

We receive life freely and we embrace it but life seems unfair to us as we are on a journey. Starting from the time when we entered into the world, we found strange weather and unpleasant climate to live in. we had parents and elders to take care and to introduce us to these new environment. Life is a struggle on a journey; a struggle to adjust and to win. When we were on the process of adjustment and socialization, we were molded and formed into the image of our parents and our community; no freedom of choice. However, when we grow we start to understand that all these process of adjustment into family and society led us to live out our life. We begin to receive life as ours and consciously embark on our journey of life.

Scott Peck, in the Road Less Traveled, opens his book with a sentence “life is difficult” telling us of how we can see life more seriously. Life should be lived out to its fully capacity.  But do we take life seriously? If life is difficult and we face many challenges on our road, we need to be prepared for it. Like a marathon runner prepares himself to run in a race, he must undergo countless hard and difficult program of training in his life, following all the plan given to him by his couch. He must prepare himself physically and mentally. Thus, when we want to set up a journey of life, we must prepare ourselves and equip our life with skill of survival on our journey. Training, self-discipline, focus, and positive/right attitude towards our goal can lead us to win the race of our life journey.

Therefore, three repeated crucial stages, which we must follow so to be successful reaching our destination are: 1. Starting a journey, 2. Being on a journey, 3. Arriving at the destination. These stages are a process of life journey to move forwards daily, monthly, and yearly, achieving our ultimate destination. We actually make a small pace on time with small target of our journey for our ultimate goal. When we embark and start on a journey, we actually face trial and error, which is a kind of preparation of life’s journey; it is a school of life; and it is experience. This process is like a spiral of our life in order to reach the end or the destination.

In religious tradition, human journey of life, a journey accompanied by prayer, fasting, and charity, is seen as a pilgrimage towards God or the Mighty One or Holiness. The ultimate destination of the journey is GOD.  We can describe the Israelites spending 40 years in the dessert, facing tribulation, temptation, and hardship, to enter the Promised Land, as a test of their faithfulness to be with Yahweh; Buddha spending his life’s journeying toward his inner self (Atman) by following the five golden paths to reach self-freedom, ie. Life without desires/wants, which cause human pains and sufferings; Muslims around the world, having of fasting and prayer as their pilgrimage toward the victory of Eid Mubarak, where they celebrate the festival of blessings from God; and  Christians celebrating Easter at the end of their pilgrimage’s journey of 40 days of Lent.  These ritualistic celebrations point to us the nature’s Journey of our destination, ie., being with God, to enjoy God’s blessings and to share in God’s life.

The journey of our life becomes difficult and frustrated when we feel that we are alone. We are tired and exhausted as we struggle to walk miles and miles on our journey. There are times that we want to give up the journey; no energy to walk; and no others to share our journey together. However, sometimes our friends and relatives encourage and support us in this journey to reach our destination. Sometimes, some strangers stop by to give us a lift as they recognize how tiring, rough and bumpy road of our life is. In this circumstances, we cry out to our God of destination: where are you God? Why You put me on this road of life? Why cannot You assist me? Is this journey right for me? Am I in the right way? Etc. frustration enter in infiltrate our being as we question and seek the answer but the journey must be taken. As we put our feet on the earth, we start embarking our journey. Hope we will arrive safely on our destination.

In conclusion, our journey of life is a search for our own fullness to be and be with our ultimate destination. We may encounter in this journey time of difficulties, frustration, problems, and sufferings; these condition can be of preparation for us; these strengthen and enrich ourselves as we are on our journey; these equip our life to face the future circumstances. Once I saw an illustration depicting about Usain Bolt, a Jamaican 100 meter world sprinter, who earn more than USD 30 million in three minutes. Wow, why it was happening like that? Miracle? The answer is that Bolt used 20 years of preparing himself with constant training and discipline to be the best runner. Israelites spent 40 years of being tested in the dessert in order to prepare themselves to enter the Promised Land. Therefore, preparation is a journey itself when we set up a goal and start to walk on journey. This journey can be an external but also can be an internal journey, which takes physical, mental, and spiritual form of our life. End of journey is clear. All depend on us. Can we manage? But you are not alone. Have a hope.