Nature is confused again. The trees are beginning to bud, the daffodils are out, the children’s toys are in the community sand box and today it’s trying to snow. When nature experiences such moments of confusion, why are we so hard on ourselves when we do?
I often find myself wanting to go back, to revisit something I’ve done before, return to an old place that I found so familiar and comforting, or replay the great successes in my life. It’s a longing to go back to a more uncomplicated time, a time when we thought we had all things in order and there was no confusion.
But, we cannot go back, no matter how hard we try. We can hold all those moments in memory and cherish them, but we cannot go back and relive them. They are gone forever.
Any journey – especially the spiritual journey – is one that only goes forward. In following Christ we must be willing to face the unknowns, the unfamiliar, the new thing we have never done before. There is no going back. We can only go forward. And every movement forward – in our lives, in our relationships, in our families, in our jobs, in our leisure pursuits, in our life of faith – is a graced moment, with our companion, Christ, traveling with us. Cherish and remember it. Because soon this moment, too, will be a memory and we will be moving forward.