Meditation on the "walk" of my life

Near the end of “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevya the milkman, would be learned man in the synagogue and home-grown philosopher, observes his friends and neighbors as they begin to leave the village where they have lived for generations.  This is the time of the pogroms in Russia and the Jews are being forced to leave everything, to find another home in another country.  He laments the sad fate of the Jewish part of his village of Anatevka.  His confusion and sorrow are so clearly expressed.  “What is Anatevka?  People go through Anatevka and never even know they’ve been here!”

Where have I been all my life?  What have I been doing?  Is my life a village through which I’ve walked and never known I’ve even been there?  Can I look down the lanes and byways of my soul’s village and see the paths I’ve walked?  What have I noticed?  Whose lives have touched mine?

“Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come.”  Let us take the next few moments to return to those shadowed side streets of our lives,  Turn off the glaring klieg lights of “could have,” “should have,” “would have,” “might have been,” “could have been.”  Abandon the distorted mirrors of rationalizing what our lives have been, where we have walked, the choices we have made. 

Allow the gentle glow of “Amazing Grace” to light our return down those known, perhaps forgotten paths.  Remember those whom we have met in moments when we felt most alone.  From where did that unexpected presence come?  What did he or she say or do that changed our direction and brought us hope? 

Simply allow yourself to be fully present to the life you have lived without blame.  That part of your life has passed.  There is no power to change what has been.  Its value lies in what can be learned, what can be observed from the glow of its backlighting of where we are now.  It is meant to be accepted without judgment or blame.  Allow yourself to recognize where you may have made inappropriate choices.  Let go of the blame and the guilt.  If you believe you caused hurt that you might have prevented, the most important person who needs forgiveness is you.  Love that person you see in that time enough to forgive.  Let it go.

See the times when you acted so beautifully and with such love, with unselfishness and goodness.  Give thanks for the beauty of who you see you were then without assuming credit for how you became that goodness.

Walk down your personal village lanes of yesterday……