Dialogo: Wandering and Connecting

Over the past week I have seen more of New England than I think I have in the past couple of years. A friend of mine came to visit and we headed off through the Green Mountains, the White Mountains, a Boston zoo, coastal Maine, and the many "trails" of touristy areas.




Having been born in North Dakota, a speed bump used to get me excited (it's a bit flat there...). But there is nothing like driving through some of the beautiful landscapes we are blessed with here.





Each day we checked the map to decide where we were going to head out and then jumped in the car and began the day's adventure. What fascinated me about all of this is a rather interesting, though not new perhaps, discovery: the unexpected places held the most fascinating opportunities. Whether we left the highway to travel out into a country road, or drove along one of those gray roads unnumbered and unnamed on our map, there were always more beautiful, more peaceful places to enjoy. It was always in those less expected places where conversations fell silent and we enjoyed the beauty all around us.

Throughout these days though, we spent time in conversation. My friend and I spoke about all kinds of topics and probably talked more in the past week than we have throughout all the years we have known one another. It was a chance to connect, to regroup, to share, to open and heal any old wound, and to catch up on where God had led and is leading us. Like the unexpected gray roads, the gray areas of our lives also turned out to be places where sharing and conversation were the most fascinating.





It is perhaps no small wonder that Robert Frost's "The Road Less Travelled" kept coming to my mind and along with it the thought that Jesus invites us all to take a similar path, one that runs counter to the expectations even we may have for ourselves and our lives.





I encourage you to meditate perhaps on where your journey has taken you these past few days, months, or years. When have you found yourself in one of life's gray areas? What discovery did you make? How did it enrich your life? (Feel free to share them here.)





May you find peace as you reflect on these questions and others that may also surface during this process.