Following Your Path

Was treated to an interesting and engaging sermon yesterday. It was all about following your cross, or bearing your burden. Each of us have themes in our lives that capture much of our inner focus. For some it is social justice: women’s rights, voting rights, civil rights, and other worthy topics. Still others pursue dreams in art and the unique expression art affords an artist. Other people are enraptured with business issues and making a name and fortune for themselves. Many remain rooted in academic pursuits and research.

Many interests. An interesting array of them, all requiring a discipline and effort to pursue. These are themes or agendas that require people to follow. Not you and I following someone else’s theme, but that person is impelled to follow his/her own theme. For them it is a must.

Yet social norms do not always make this easy. Think of the ‘nerds’ among us who have gone against the grain of their friends and family to follow their interests. Think where this work got them. Some have whittled out a special nook in which to live and prosper. They are happy. They followed their mind and found happiness in spite of external pressures that wanted conformity from them.

In a way every artist – musician, sculptor, potter, weaver, seamstress, chef, painter, et.al. – is a non-conformist. They struggle to find meaning in their life. They work at tasks the rest of us usually don’t understand. They learn small rewards from their effort. They gain knowledge and confidence over time and eventually arrive at their place of happiness and achievement. They don’t need our accolades to prove a point. They supply their own recognition of success.

The same is true for technology nerds. They find joy in making electrons do something you and I only wonder about. I’m still amazed that both radio and TV travel invisibly through air and space to be perceived as music, sound and images on our radios and televisions. I have dreaded a kid asking me how that works! I really don’t know. But I do get that it is about physics.  Just ask my kids. “It’s basic physics, kids.” That was my standard answer. And it was correct then and now.

The nerds, however, learned how physics worked and made it work for us in many ways. It got us to the moon and back. It has transformed medical technology for all of us. It has turned education on its ear and helped us teach and learn concepts unimaginable in the ‘old days’. Silently and at their desks buried in bedrooms around the nation, nerds follow a quiet pursuit on their own. And they, like Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates burst forth on the public scene with amazing products. Their efforts continue to amaze as their organizations build new models of new technologies expanding science to every nook and cranny of our lives.

There are other themes and agendas to pursue. Being a person of minority status is such a theme. In our society women are often viewed as a minority. They aren't of course. Still a lot of people have trouble seeing women as equals. We know that is ridiculous but you also know women’s rights is still a major movement in our world today, even in America.

Of course minorities of ethnic origins abound. Immigration, too. They suffer but they also excel at many things. They have much to be proud of and it is for the rest of us to make them feel welcome and whole. Meanwhile they will continue to be themselves and follow their own dreams and mindsets with or without us. We must wish them well. Their success is also ours. The opposite demeans our human community. We all lose in that case.

Crosses to bear include people who are handicapped in some way, or are set apart. Maybe it is a gay person. Perhaps it is an intellectual who thinks very differently than the rest of us. Maybe it is a person we often see but don’t understand who they really are. They are just a part of our landscape. Maybe it is the homeless man we encounter nearly every morning on our commute to work. Or the seedy looking street musician. Or the elderly lady slowly making her rounds to where we can only imagine; but she does it every morning. Without fail.

Each of us has a specific point of reference to the rest of the world. That shapes how we see ourselves, too. How we allow others into our lives has some dependence on this point of reference. Most importantly, it also shapes how we see ourselves and what it is we pursue as important in our life. It is this silent ‘birthright’ of individuality that forms our journey’s pathway. Following the path makes us who we are today and tomorrow. Not following the path diminishes who we are and what we can become.

Bear your personal burden or dream wherever it takes you. It will expand your world. It will let you be. Uniquely you. It is your job to do.

How exciting!

March 2, 2015