Most of the time I’m a pretty organized person, so you might believe that I’m one of those far-sighted folks who make one-year, five-year, or lifetime plans and actually arrive where they had planned to be at the end of that time. Such a neat and tidy way to live your life, I always thought.
In my case, however, not so much.
If, like Hansel and Gretel, I had left a trail of breadcrumbs to mark my passage through the years, the landscape would probably look like a maze of scribbles, with trails begun and turned back on, false starts, dead ends, and here and there a stretch of smooth path marred only by the occasional dot of dried bread.
My life has grown, higgledy-piggledy, like some kind of many-armed creature, in all directions. There has been disappointment….and joy….laughter, and sorrow….and anger….all the tastes of life, bittersweet on my tongue. The sharp edge of pain has scarred my heart many times over, and difficult times have carved their furrows into my skin.
But always, always, up from the very bottom of my own Pandora’s box – undamaged , glowing incandescent – has fluttered a tiny light, exquisite as a butterfly, frail as gossamer, yet tenacious as life itself.
My lifeline to the eternal.
Somehow, without thought or particular volition, like a child chasing willy-nilly after butterflies in the summer sun, I have managed to follow this bobbing and flitting twinkle of light through the years. And now, from the vantage point of accumulated days and months and years, I look back at that crooked path of bread crumbs and realize to my astonishment that I have ended up….exactly where I needed to be.
And I find, without knowing exactly how it happened, that I have come to trust this little light to bring me safely home.
Deo gratias.
Susannah
Susannah Hay 