A path. What is it about a path that quickens something within us. Is it 'a beckoning' that produces a sense of anticipation that this could lead somewhere...somewhere significant? I rarely see another person on this particular path. So there's 'an embedded contradiction' here -- a path with no one on it can only infer that at one point or another there have been many others on it...otherwise, how could the path exist? Somebody, somebodies that is, has walked it...and continue to walk it. So, if I'm on it even if alone at the moment, I'm not really alone after all. I'm travelling a way that others have also traveled. I can't make a path by myself, but I can perpetuate it for someone else, just by walking it.
A path also is intriguing because it is 'a way' through something. A path is often surrounded by all kinds of things; things growing, things thick, things amass, things untouched, things beautiful, things unknown, things scary, things dangerous. In the middle of such things, physical or otherwise, we want a way through it. A means of getting from where I am to where I want to be, even if I don't yet know where or what that is.
There is a series of pictures on a wall at church, depicting a path. I am regularly drawn to something by it . In that context, I am drawn to the notion that there is a Way. A Way that is something more than an actual place. Contemplating this, a verse comes to mind:
Jesus answered, "I am the way
and the truth and the life."
-- John 14:6
In spite of all of its attending questions, part of the mysterious power of a path is that it's only real requirement seems to be to walk it.
Remember, sinner, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you -- it is Christ.
-- C.H. Spurgeon
Perhaps this is part of the compelling nature of a path. We can walk the path in front us, knowing the destination isn't in our hands. The destination is good...and so is the Way to it. Follow the path.
