Detours

Do you find that your life feels entirely too busy sometimes? Occasionally, I’ll look up from the grind stone and discover that a whole day, or a week or month, have simply slipped away virtually unnoticed. Things that I really meant to get around to languish on the maybe list or end up discarded in the great refuse bin of squandered opportunities. What happens to that quality time we were looking forward to with our spouses, children, friends, even God? We seem to get stuck in the fast lane of the main stream and there often appears to be too much traffic to even attempt an exit. Where do all those moments go that we intended to stop and savor? ... the sunrises and sunsets, the long walks on the beach, even pausing to just sit quietly and think or pray. Those are the moments in life that can make all the difference, and certainly the ones which we remember the most fondly. However, they always seem too few and too far between. Yet, in the larger scheme of life, will it really matter if we were able to squeeze in one more errand, one more committee meeting or an extra hour or two of work? Doubtful. We all have places to go and things to do, but it never hurts to take a detour now and again. In Robert Frost’s classic poem “The Road Not Taken” he muses on taking a different path in life, a detour, if you will, and comes away concluding:
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
As we wander through this life, let us also pause to consider taking a different path from time to time, even daring to stop completely for a while. We never know, perhaps it may make all the difference to us as well.


Detour at Thurman Flats
I’m always in such a hurry
Always so eager to be on my way
I’d seen the sign a hundred times
On a hundred other days
But, this evening, on a whim I turned
As I had time enough to spare
And pensive thoughts upon my mind
I reckoned to ponder somewhere
I came, at last, to Thurman Flats
And plunged headlong into
The patch of forest near at hand
As I am prone to do
Blackberries lined the tiny trail
Which guided me through the wood
And I feasted on them as I went
Until, at last, I stood
On the bank of a mountain stream
Where I picked a rock to recline
And bid the summer sun adieu
As the day’s final rays did shine
I tarried a while upon my perch
To take in the song of the stream
Working out the burdens upon my heart
Venturing even a little day dream
How many times have I passed this way
Rushing by on my way to somewhere
Oblivious to the beauty and peace
Which might be discovered there
Today I learned we need to slow down
And enjoy what life has to give
Sometimes we get so busy with living
That we don’t take time to live

By Frank Carpenter ©