Sometimes you have to leave what you have always known in order to discover a new home. It's never easy, the leaving, I mean. We humans attach to what we know, for better or worse, and often hate to lose what is familiar to us. Even if our status quo is painful and we long for something different, when the time comes to give up the familiar places, habits, relationships, etc., we often find ourselves clinging tightly to the known quantities. Yet to come home, you must leave where you are now. And it might cost you everything.
Today, I'm sharing a poem that has accompanied me through and comforted me in some of my "leavings."
The Journey
Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
(Devotions, pg.349-350)
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