Halfway Through the Woods

     

     

     There is a great song near the end of the musical, “Wicked” that sings:
                               "I've heard it said
                               that people come into our lives for a reason
                               bringing something we must learn
                               and we are led
                               to those who help us most, to grow
                                if we let them
                               and we help them in return.
                               Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
                               but I know I'm who I am today
                               because I knew you...
                               Like a comet pulled from orbit
                               as it passes the sun
                               like a stream that meets a boulder
                               halfway through the wood
                               who can say if I've been changed for the better?
                               But because I knew you
                               I have been changed for good"
     The more I work with those who work in hospice, the more I find these words to be true. The song's words and phrases companion me well on many days. And sometimes the whole feels true.
     Hallway through the woods.
     Many of us find ourselves halfway through Tender days. Holy days. Full and seemingly empty days. Hallway through days.
     As Linda and I are raising our two pretty amazing boys – one in middle school and the other high school, I’m daily aware of how important it seems to them TO KNOW things. Details. Answers. Truths. Definitive results. All these seem to be part of their worlds. All these seem to be a way for them to navigate their way through their lives. And most days when I am engaged in this work I am doing, KNOWING seems to matter less and less. It’s not so much a part of what matters for me.
     In so many ways, we are all halfway through the woods. All of us. Those in hospice and those in middle school. This is not meant to be morbid or fatalistic in anyway. Instead it is one lens through which I am looking these days.
     This song opens with the truth about teachers/ companions/guides/soul-mates coming at the most best times. Folks who have either lived something similar or folks who are loving us enough to share the journey – if just for a bit.
     I’ve surely experienced those sharing-journeys folks, and am experiencing them most everyday still. Grace abounds in those moments, when hallway through the woods invites me to stop and pay attention. Stop and take a good, long breath and stretch a bit. Halfway through the woods moments welcome us to focus on what brings joy and love and life. And then start again…

 

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