A new path

 

You have a new path for me to walk with you.

 

It is neither the familiar old way of religion that I have trodden so long;

nor the dead-end shortcut of lawless, independent freedom that I so often try

and which is no freedom at all.

It is neither the narrow path of unquestioned rules, formulas, traditions, principles;

nor the broad road of a hodge-podge, traditionless quasi-faith.

It is neither life-sucking law nor cheap grace; neither cowardly, indiscriminate mercy nor hard-hearted, short-sighted truth; neither skin-deep, loveless righteousness nor fear-driven, short-lived peace.

 

Your path for me does not lose itself in the sidetracks of a dry and godless intellect;

nor meander aimlessly, unthinkingly, along the ways of an undiscerning heart.

 

It finds itself neither in the thick-walled enclave of co-dependent community;

nor in the boundary-less group of people alone.

 

You would not see me walk this path fearfully, tentatively,

my eyes lowered in cringing, guilty duty;

nor bound along it as if I need no guide, no light for my feet, not even air to breathe.

 

Walking this unfamiliar path with you, you are neither a distant, unknown stranger, nor a too-familiar friend with no mystery.  And I am neither a weak, worthless worm, nor a semi-god, all power untapped.

 

So I here I stand at the threshold of this new path, my two old ways still running faithfully on either side.  They are clear paths, straight roads, easy to walk, but this new way before me is strange, shrouded, shadowy.  Is it a merging of my old ways or is it altogether different?  I cannot tell, I do not know.  But I do know that on this path the old and the new, the strange and the familiar are friends.  I do know that mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other.  Here I am bold and afraid, weak and strong, soft-hearted and strong-minded, alone and in community, a slave and free, rooted and winged, confident and unsure…  And you… you I know so well and do not know at all, so close and so far away.

 

One more thing I know, that this new path you call me to passes through the very heart of the fire, through raging rivers and rushing waters.  It is not safe.  But it is good.  It is hard to find, easy to lose, and yet so often, when I think I have lost my way, my feet stumble unknowingly onto this new path.  And every time I return to the new path from a stint on my old, familiar ways, I will find the road firmer and the horizon clearer.

 

Rachael Barham,

10th and 11th April 2005