7. On “The Road Not Taken”

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.	20

Some of my students want to read this poem as if it is titled "The Road Less Traveled By," and interpret it as a poem mainly about choices, emphasizing especially the last line as an expression of triumph. They see it as a call to non-conformity, and misread the poem as a call to the reader to take roads that are less traveled.

But it seemt to me that such an interpretation ignores the "sigh" in line 16—the one we should make when we read the "—" in line 18. It also ignores an even better interpretation of the whole poem, one that suggests the poem is more about the stories we tell about ourselves than it is about the choices we make.

The poem contains two versions of the same event. The first version takes up the first three stanzas; it is the story the speaker tells of the event (probably) shortly after it happened. Of note, in this version of the story, the speaker goes to some lengths to make it clear the two roads are "really about the same." Both haven't been walked upon that much, for that morning they "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" (11-12). The second version of the story takes of the last stanza, and is told "ages and ages hence." In it, the speaker has revised the story and states (attempts to convince himself?) that he took "the one less traveled by" (19).

Time has a way of changing the stories we tell about ourselves. Perhaps our memories are self-serving, and we tell the story about ourselves that we want to believe. But if we're self-aware, we'll make note of that "sigh" we make when we tell that version of the story, ages and ages hence.

And maybe be a little more human.

6. On Cars

Or not so much on cars in general, "On My Car."  Or, "On My 1999 Blue Ford Escort."  The one that is just about ready for the graveyard, I think.  It's served me well. I don't drive it all that much--back and forth to work, in the summer to softball tournaments and games, occasionally to the store. It hasn't even made it to a  hundred thousand miles yet, but it runs like it's a lot older. The kind of miles I put on it all these years are the hardest kind of miles on a car.  A mile or two here, eight or nine miles there.  Hardly gives the poor thing a chance to warm up.

I hate the very thought of buying a new car.  And I vowed after I bought a new care ten years ago that I would never buy another "new" car.  That's not what I mean.  I hate the thought of buying any car.  I don't trust people who sell cars, I don't trust myself to not get ripped off when I buy a car, and I don't like spending money in such large sums.  Leaves me depressed for days.  And cars--a car is just something that takes you from one place to the next without your having to sweat or breathe heavy. 

If there were decent bike lanes or even if I could trust the rest of the idiots who drive cars all over the place, I'd bike to work most days and maybe find a way to eliminate my reliance on the car.  But there are no decent bike lanes from where I live to where I work, and experience biking that route has given me no reason to place my trust in idiots.

I could buy a house somewhere closer to where I work, a thought I entertain nearly every day driving home.  But remember what I said about big purchases leaving me depressed?

So, I will buy a car.  Or maybe, J. will buy us a car.  She actually seems energized by the wheeling and dealing and excitement of car buying.

5.5. In Dreams

5. On 42

• I turn 42 today.
• Jackie Robinson wore #42.
• One time in a summer league basketball game in Bourbon, I scored 42 points.
• 42 days into 2012, I will have written 42 new blog entries.
• My world literature class will meet 42 times this semester--41 classes and a final exam period.
• Volume 42 of the Great Books of the Western World includes the major works of Immanuel Kant. I've never read it.  I don't plan on wasting my 42nd year doing so.
• Psalm 42 begins, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God."
• 42 feet is a perfect distince between home plate and the pitchng rubber in wiffle ball.
• "Cholly was beyond redemption, of course, and redemption was hardly the point--Mrs. Breedlove was not interested in Christ the Redeemer, but rather in Christ the Judge." (p. 42, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel of lost innocence you should go to the library right now and get).
• Say "Tea for two" really fast about 10 times and I bet you'll almost say 42.
• I've always found Matthew 5:42--"Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you"--harder to follow than I would like to admit.
• 6 x 7.  Also 41 + 1.
• 24--the number I wore in basketball most of the time--backwards is 42.
•  A Double Quarter Pounder from McDonald's contains 42 grams of fat.
• If gained 42 pounds--perhaps by eating 42 Double Quarter Pounders a week for the next 42 days (6 weeks)--I would weigh 225 pounds.
• I just did 42 push-ups, so I could say that I just did 42 push-ups.
• Apparantly this guy http://youtu.be/tRe1wFIACw8 has a 42 inch vertical.  He definitely has a really cool Alfalfa hair thing going.
• I would bet 42 dollars that fewer than 42 people will actually read this blog entry.

4. On Creating vs. Consuming

She makes things.  She makes things all day long.
I consume things.  I consume things all day long.

I read books.
We read books together, too, but then she surrounds herself for an hour or two with a million markers and crayons and paper and glue and staples and scissors, and she makes her own book, which she gives away to someone as a gift.

She delights in making the cheesy scrambled eggs and toast...
that I will eat, while I channel surf.

I plug my new headphones into the computer and listen to my favorite station on Pandora or Last.Fm,
while she sits down at her keyboard and hammers out another song she's taught herself to play.

In the beginning, God created...
And all day long, so does Syd, bearing His image with gladness.

3. The False Self

Life is a journey.
All journeys quests.
Every quest has the same purpose--that purpose is to deepen the self-knowledge of the quester.
Self-knowledge is never merely additive; it is always transformative.

Maybe?

The Spirit intends to investigate our whole life history, layer by layer, throwing out the junk and preserving the values that wer appropriate to each stage of our human development . . . Eventually, the Spirit begins to dig into the bedrock of our earliest emotional life . . . Hence, as we progress toward the center where God is actually waiting for us, we are naturally going to feel that we are getting worse.  This warns us that the spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move.  It is rather a series of humiliations of the false self.  (Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer, 82-84).

Which begs the question, of course.  If I actually feel good about my progress am I truly making progress?  Should progress actually feel like I'm getting worse? 

I guess I buy this idea of upside down progress--of wisdom through suffering--in literature.  The alarm bells go off in my head whenever I read of things going "well" for Katniss Everdeen, because it is just about the time when things seem to be going well for her that the Capital sends some misery and devastation.  I want to believe that for her, these miseries are humiliations of the false self, and are in fact ultimately moving her toward the real purpose of her quest (self-knowledge), even if they may appear to take her further from her stated purpose.  What the Enemy doesn't seem to know, then, is that in their efforts to destroy her, they may actually be moving her "toward the center" where she finds her true self.

What about me? Just this. In the midst of calamity it never feels like I'm making progress.  While I rather like literature that makes this point about life's journey being a series of humiliations to the false self rather than a success story, if I had my choice, I'd write my own story--and the stories of those I love most--some other way.

2. On the Neighbor’s Dogs

Two dogs—both medium sized mutts of indistinct breed—live in a cage behind the house a couple backyards over.  They are too far away for me to read the expressions on their faces when Morgan and I play ball in our spacious fenced backyard, but they sit on the roofs of their homes inside their kennel and stare our direction.  Sometimes they bark.

I’ve never seen anyone take them on a walk. I’ve never seen anyone throw them a ball.

I’ve only ever seen them in that kennel. 

I don’t understand why anyone would want to keep a dog—never mind two dogs—penned up 24-7 in the far reaches of their backyard.  The dogs apparently are not starving, for they have been there well over a year now.  But surely they must be depressed.  All that open space, so many smells, so many free creatures roaming the woods and trees and yards just outside their pen, yet there they sit.

When all creation is one day redeemed and made new, I have a strong suspicion that those two dogs will be there, too, and that there will be no more cages, and that they will run free, and not grow weary.  

My prayer is that I would be as heartbroken for my caged human neighbors, whose lives must be no less tragic.

1. On Leadership

Considering how many words have been written--especially in recent years--on leadership, it is striking to me how precious few truly wise words have been written on the subject. Apparently there's a market out there for books on leadership, when most of what you need to know could be learned by reading very old books that don't have "Leadership" in the title (i.e. The Bible, The Iliad and The Odyssey, etc.). Spend your time with them, and if you have any imagination at all, you'll learn more about leadership than any hundred modern books. We don't need "leadership" seminars. We need to read the Great Books.

And, maybe, we need to read Parker Palmer.

Everyone who draws breath "takes the lead" many times a day. We lead with actions that range from a smile to a frown; with words that range from blessing to curse; with decisions that range from faithful to fearful . . . When I resist thinking of myself as a leader, it is neither because of modesty nor a clear-eyed look at the reality of my life . . . I am responsible for my impact on the world whether I acknowledge it or not.

So what does it take to qualify as a leader. Being human and being here. As long as I am here, doing whatever I am doing, I am leading for better or for worse. And, if I may says so, so are you.

Common sense tells us that all of us lead and all of us follow. Whether leaders are born or made--and made through reading all the right how-to books on leadership--is not the point at all. The point is that we all must acknowledge ourselves as leaders because are human and are here and accept that, whether we like it or not, we are leaders. We do not choose between leading and not leading. Our choice is between leading well or leading poorly.