The Lonely Path
Robbie Titchener
“if our journeys are always
unique then each of our nights of prayer and darkness of faith are also unique.
St John of the Cross says, ‘God carries each person along a different road so
that you will scarcely find two people following the same route in even half of
their journey to God. Each person is unique and God is infinitely varied.' While
the stories of others can be encouraging, they will never be the same as ours.”
Alan Jamieson, Called Again p80.
Each journey begins
 with a single step
In the beginning
my single step
was cluttered
 hesitant
 lost in a thousand other steps
My early journey
was well-worn
 well-trodden
not a blade of grass
left standing
on this barren, gravel road
Sometimes
I would walk with friends
- their path was my path
 aren't we all going the same way?
Sometimes
I would take another's path
- confusing their broad
road with my narrow path
 pointing in the same direction
But as the paths decrease
as the numbers decline
I learn the certainty of my
own path
Travelling away from the
masses
 travelling through creeks and gullies
 journeying by day and night
 the long, slow curve of the mountain slope
Sometimes
I cross another's path
Sometimes
theirs travels alongside
- within talking distance
 within distant sight
I travel my own path
 though it is the way less travelled
I travel my own path
 though I know not where it leads