Trust the Journey

A while back I was a guest, along with several other new members of St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, for dinner at the home of the rector. For this Sunday evening affair we received printed directions to the rector’s home on the far west side of Santa Fe, and in those directions were the clear instructions “trust the journey”. As it turned out, trust was not of solid value because the directions contained a critical error. Only after stopping at what appeared to be the end of the road, where the road actually seemed to go out into nowhere, retracing my steps to a street that had a name similar to the one in print, wandering futilely through a maze of streets and endless faux adobe houses and then returning to the main artery and back to the end of the road, did I by accident find the rector’s street and house. As he answered the door, he was on the phone giving directions to someone who was lost, someone who had called. I wasn’t willing to admit that the directions confounded and frustrated me, especially with the clear instructions to “trust the journey”. He received several other calls for help as we sat making small talk in his living room.

Ah, but to trust the journey, especially when the road isn’t so clear, the markers misleading, the instinct to ask for help is confounded by a willful need to figure it out, and an unwillingness to admit that we are indeed lost, at least for the time being. A friend visiting here from Texas has asked me a couple of times how I came to realize that I wanted to try living in Santa Fe and if I’m happy with the choice. And as I answered the question, I was reminded once again that I didn’t plan this journey. It seems that a year ago I somehow answered a call, as I anxiously considered spending part of my inheritance on a frivolous apartment here, an answering that another friend has described as an act of courage. At this late stage in my life, as I spend my days and money in a place where thousands of people over the years have come to find themselves, heal themselves, re-invent themselves, hide themselves, realize themselves, I am reminded often that I must trust this journey.

Watching the news these days is a painful experience—all the reminders that we are living in especially tough times even though by comparison most of us need to say often, there but for the grace of God go I. Lately I’ve seen much to nudge me into keener awareness. At a ceremony a couple of weeks ago honoring a local man and woman who have multiple handicaps, the generosity of spirit of these two challenged yet gifted human beings was enough to send us all out into the world to do good. This doing good is something we need to offer not only to others, but to ourselves as well. In the film, Away From Her, which examines the journey of a couple as both of them struggle with her disappearance into Alztheimer’s disease, a husband must come to terms with a loss that his wife accepts more willingly. As she forms a bond with a man, also a resident at the home where chooses to go, her husband draws close to this man’s wife. Those who remain behind are left to find meaning in loss, and as this woman, who must sell the home she and her husband have grown older in for many years finally concludes, happiness is a choice.

Another friend has said that she hopes I am happy in New Mexico, and if not happy, at least content. Last night, as my visitor from Texas and I listened to great Texas/New Mexico troubadours, their resonating bar room tenors set against the accompaniment of acoustic guitar, mandolin and bass, we watched a crowd of people moving around the concrete in front of the plaza band stand in old Santa Fe. Mostly they were couples, surely some on vacation, others local, but there were a few older women who came to dance solo. Swaying to the rhythms, lips moving with the words of familiar songs, maybe a couple of these women weren’t playing with a full deck, as the saying goes. Regardless, their bodies testified to the affect of the music on their souls. My friend commented, “I’m having a great time.” “This is wonderful,” I replied, as I gnawed on a problem or two—always at work in the back of my mind—even though my own feet and hands kept time with the music. As the performance drew to a close, a couple of old hands—Texas transplants who have made Santa Fe home for a more than two decades—mounted the stage to help sing “New Mexico Rain”. The sun had set and the stage was lit with spots. I moved from the bench where we had been sitting to stand at the base of the stage stairs, my heart intent on the lush harmonies pouring into the cooling night air. “…if I ain’t happy here, then I ain’t happy nowhere…”.

Trust the Journey—Santa Fe, New Mexico (July 29, 2008)

R. Harold Hollis