I have been doing quite a lot of reading lately. I had recently picked up my copy of The Poetry of Robert Frost. I have read this book many times but the last time was a long while ago. I flipped the book open to the bookmark that I had left inside, and it was marking one of my favorite poems: The Road Not Taken. I thought that’s cool, this will be fun to read again.
Then that evening, my older sister Dory called to catch up on all that has been happening in our lives. During the conversation, the topic of Lent came up, and she asked what devotional I was going to use this year. Well, she was way ahead of me, (as First Born’s usually are). At the time I did not even know when Ash Wednesday was going to arrive. She said that her church had decided to read, My Life with the Saints, by James Martin, SJ. She said that she had already read it once and that it was so good that she was going to read it again with her spiritual group.
About a week later, a package arrived at my door and in it was a new copy of the book that she had mentioned to me. Inside the front cover, she had placed a handwritten note, “Here is the new book for reading -- It is my favorite book.” Let me say that sharing copies of books with one another is not something that we normally do. We will suggest titles of good books and then leave it up to each other to follow up or not. So, I knew that this was important to her, and I decided to take her advice.
I began to read it right away and found the author’s way of telling a story to be very engaging, even when I was reading about a saint that I was already familiar with. Each chapter talks about the life of a different saint and how they had impacted the author's life. I couldn’t wait to get to the third chapter devoted to Thomas Merton because he has been my favorite spiritual writer. In that chapter, the author shared that Thomas had struggled with some of the same things the author did – pride, ambition, selfishness. "He struggled with the same questions I was wondering about: What are we made for? Who is God? What is the purpose of our lives.” I certainly could relate to the author. They were the same reasons I had been attracted to Thomas Merton all those years ago when I was struggling to discern my vocation.
This morning I was finishing up that chapter, and the author ended by sharing one of Thomas Merton's prayers, It too was one of my favorites but this time when I read it, it took on a whole new meaning, because the words of Robert Frost’s poem were still fresh in my memory banks.
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;
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,
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 would ever come back.
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.
from Mountain Interval
-- Robert Frost
-- 1916
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
from Thoughts in Solitude
--- Thomas Merton
--- 1958
Merton’s faith in a loving and caring God, someone he trusted to lead, made all the difference in his life. While Frost anticipated that he would manage a “sigh” down the road when faced with the fruits of his choice, Merton’s faith enabled him to say, “I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.” What a marvelous difference God can make in someone’s life if God is allowed to lead. Amen.
