Dear Friends

I don’t know about you, but I love it when I learn a new word or expression. The new one I learned this week was “desire path”. A desire path is a path that has been created by numbers of people walking where they want to go sufficiently frequently for a path to form in the grass or woodland. Of course, in the days before the Romans gave us roads, most footways were desire paths, but it reminded me of a book I have on my shelves called “We make the road by walking” by Brian McLaren.

The book reminds us that none of us, however old, are “done” yet. We continue being sculpted until the day we die. As individuals and as communities, we have the option to move forward if we choose and also the freedom to stagnate and regress.

The Bible too speaks of such things, most specifically in that wonderful imagery of the potter and the clay that is found in Jeremiah 18:2-5 when God tells Jeremiah: “’Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message’. So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”

God doesn’t make us walk in one particular way, nor does he force us into one particular shape. In the same way, the Romans brought roads to Judea, but Jesus and the disciples walked along desire paths at the edge of the desert, in the hills above Galilee, on the Mount of Olives. Just as Jesus lived in occupied territory but walked in his Father’s way, so we live in a time and place occupied by all the worries, concerns, determination to acquire power, money or things that this life demands of us, and yet we are called, if we choose to follow, to avoid worldly roads, and walk instead upon desire paths leading always towards Jesus and his Father, empowered for the journey by the supporting presence of the Holy Spirit.

God bless

Vicci