The Choice
Throughout life’s journey we come to forks in the road. These paths force us to make choices: “Do I continue on the same path that is known and there is some level of comfort, or do in go on the narrow road … the path of the unknown?”
The Choice
In Jewish biblical teaching the journey on the road of life is … a series of crossroads and forks in the road. Also, it is a circle that brings us around to the place where we started. There… we revisit something we have encountered before. I may choose to go around the mountain again on the same path or I can spiral upward to a new path that goes around the mountain of God.
Understanding these two principals of the “road” will help you navigate the journey.
Re-visiting the Prophetic
Journey around the mountain
In this season I find myself embarking on an old journey, the path of the prophetic. The longer that I walked this path several years ago, the more abuses I encountered. My question to God was, “How can such a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit be so misused.” I had come to a fork in the road and chose to leave “the path of the prophetic” and start a journey on “the road of contemplative prayer and Lectio Divina.”
The Road of the Contemplative Life
This is the “road of the Divine Indwelling, the Living Word.” This is the “road to Emmaus,” where Christ the Shepherd opens Himself as The Living Scriptures and my heart burns within me with divine love for Yahweh. This is the road that brings one to experience the scripture that reads,
the great mystery is …..Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The New Road
This new path brings together the Gift of the Prophetic and the Spiritual Practice of Contemplative Prayer. I look forward to being taught by the Holy Spirit how to walk this path in my life and art. If you would like to see how this unfolds in my art go to my blog “www.paintedvoice.com” or click on my link at the top right of this page that reads MY ART BLOG.
In the last year I’ve seen some significant changes my life. The corporate grind keeps trying to gind me into powder. The more I give (out of good intentions I might add) the more they take and demand. It’s a never ending cycle. Certainly I have to work, but do i have to work THE way i do? I don’t think so. Once President O’bama was elected, it occurred to me the responsiblity for the entire free world was no longer on my shoulders. With that burden lifted I made some choices about the “path” I was on. The day after the election I stopped watching the news. I stopped listening to talk radio. I stopped reading the news paper. I stopped watching junk TV. I read the book “Blue Like Jazz” and found a guy that thinks like I do, wierd as it is at times! I am pursuing a new path. One I’ve never been on at all, and one I know little or nothing about. I don’t know where it’s going, but I do know that as I start walking this new path, and I start seeing things I hadn’t seen before, I find I need to get rid of things I’ve done all my life because they are adding nothing to my journey but are in fact making it more difficult. i look forward to your journal. Perhaps our paths will cross ….