Life is a Journey We All must Take.

Life is a journey we all must take. It is a journey across time as well as space, years as well as environs. It is a continuous passage from birth to death, from growing up to growing old. Whatever else we are here to do, assuming there is some hidden yet hopefully grand purpose for our being at all, our essential work seems to revolve around three primal pillars: to live, to learn, and to love.

To live: We are here to live out a life in which we simply find ourselves, an ongoing narrative not of our own initial making, a story which seems to appear out of nowhere, yet with a definite beginning and end, a clock-timed birthing and dying. Yet, who are we? What are we to do? How are we to live? What are we to expect?

Who knows but that when you pass over to the other side, someone may ask you, “So, tell me your story.” And the spirit will show up to aid your memory.

To learn: We are here to learn about the life and cosmos around us, including ourselves, other people, and relationships. What is good and what is evil? What works in relationships and what does not? What can we know? What crucial lessons must we learn?

Who knows but that when you pass over to the other side, someone may also ask you, “So, what have you learned?’ Again, the spirit will be there to assist your recollection.

To love: This may be the real substance of life’s meaning and purpose. To love and be loved, to add more love to the world, these may be as important as leaving progeny behind for continuing generations. What is love and what is loving? What works for and against love? What must we know and do to become satisfied, as well as satisfactory, in loving and being loved?

Who knows but that when you pass over to the other side, someone may ask you lastly, “So, who loves you and whom do you love?” Once more, the spirit will help your remembrance.

Beneath these three primal pillars of living, learning, and loving, yet another journey is taking place across our lives. It is deeper, quieter, and less graspable. But it is ongoing nonetheless. In my first little yet unpublished book, the book of my late 20’s, I titled it, Journey of the Heart. Heart Truths Gathered Along the Way. It consists of prose poems and aphorisms. The prologue speaks to me still:

“As the world around you is vast, so also is the world within you.

You cannot be sure when you began or whether you will end.

In your consciousness, you are timeless.

Yet within this searching awareness, a hidden journey is unfolding.

It is a journey of the heart.

Beyond the flux of daily life, this wayfarer moves in constancy with the seasons.

From the womb of a half-remembered Mother was it cast, never to return. Yet it bears Her substance; Her love has implanted a yearning.

As a pilgrim, the heart seeks the Holy City.

The journey of the heart is not only toward God; it is of God as well.

It is the one true path of Self-discovery.

And many are the truths the heart gathers along the heaven-bound way.”

I am of course still on that heart journey, still gathering heart truths. As I have learned from others, including God, the journey does not end here, but continues after death, until the holy city is entered, at last.