Dark Woods

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi retrovai per una selva oscura,
che la diritta via era smarrita.

Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost.

You can always tell its been a good day when I find myself reading Dante. But sometimes that’s where it’s at. I have spent most of the last year travelling. Consuming culture in Paris, eating at the sacred table of the Riddells in New Zealand (think Aslans table with better wine) , living in a beach hut in Vietnam, taking a boat trip up the Mekong Delta, faced the best and the worst of the human condition in Cambodia, trekked through the hills of Northern Thailand, elephant riding , white water rafting, come home to the embrace of a loving community and now for almost the last 2 months I have been in my second home in Nashville TN, writing, wrestling with God in the mountains, dealing with the realities and the messiness of life and relationships, good, bad , painful and wonderful at the same time.

And right now I find myself in a dark wood where the straight way is lost. Face to face with a painful truth that problems don’t change by travelling – you still carry them with you. Answers aren’t always easier to find sitting on a beach or in a log cabin in the mountains. I’ve learned much, experienced the divine in new ways, am happier with who I am as a person and yet still haven’t found the answer. I seem to be involved in a search for a new way of living, a new way of being – a structure to direct and illuminate the next part of my life and in truth I am a little afraid. I head home very soon and am still not sure what I will do next.

I don’t want to leave this totally bleak because although Dante spent most of his time in hell looking down, he did eventually emerge and walk under the sky again and when he looked up he saw the stars.