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We were recently on a car rally where we were sent around some beautiful countryside, navigating with the aid of a tulip diagram. These are simple schematic images of how an upcoming intersection will appear. Of course, the 3-dimensional reality is spectacularly different from this simple line drawing and so there is a challenge in first recognising the intersection and second navigating through it.
People sometimes talk about “being at the cross-roads” as if they have magically arrived at some moment in their life where they are faced with a clear cut decision. A decision that is a significant change or where they can choose to keep going along the current path. I think that life is seldom like that. Decision points can build gradually, or they can sneak up on you, or they can arrive suddenly and demand an immediate response.
Perhaps the most “cross-roads” like moments are when you are deciding on a course of study or considering your first job after leaving school. The choices can be quite clear cut and mutually exclusive and the moment of decision can be stark. After that, future decisions about vocations can start with a gnawing dissatisfaction or can be thrust upon you by retrenchment or sacking.
In a similar way, other life decisions can grow organically in your thoughts or can arrive “out of the blue”. Sometimes things can just feel right or can just feel wrong and you move into the decision with a hunch or intuition, other times you can decide quite objectively by weighing up the pros and the cons. Some of my friends claim they make their best decisions when under stress!
I sense my life is moving through a time of change and decision and I spend some contemplative time wondering about the type of changes ahead and the changes I would make if I could. In some way I hope that this prepares me for the process of change, with its grieving and its anticipation.
My time in communion with Creator helps me to consider life’s flow and the inevitable changes in direction that occur. I try to discern what are “good” choices and what may be for me stagnant paths. In that way I hope I am less surprised by what happens in life.
I hope you can seek and find guidance along your path.