A long obedience in the same direction

Keep on walking, even if the way is not straight.

This has been one of my challenges of late, and I know that I’m not alone.

It can be tiring to plod on, day after day when you can’t see the end in sight.

Yet this is where meaning arises.

Not the ecstatic sense of identity when something is accomplished. But the deepening appreciation of why we are doing this, and who it’s for anyway.

In times like these, Nietzsche’s words focus my attention:

The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made worth living.

I also remember the second half of the lovely Blessing from John O’Donohue – For the Interim Time:

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you had outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind
And that is difficult and slow to become new,
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

John O’Donohue, Benedictus: A Book of Blessings, Bantam Press, 2007

Finally, I look to find the solid ground I need to stand on. And choose life.

Go well

Sue

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