STEPPING STONES ON MY JOURNEY

I am at Vancouver School of Theology where I am privileged to be part of a group that is the first visiting faculty for their interfaith summer school. The location by is by the sea and I can see the sun setting over the water while there is a lone tree where eagles have made their nest and they come and perch on the tree. The locale is totally conducive to a spiritual realm of nature, the people here being no less spiritual. I fee at home. Dr. Wendy Fletcher who is VST Principal and Dean writes in her welcome: “Some years ago I was privileged to spend a brief time in contemplation in an ancient Buddhist monastery in Southern China. One elder monk who had journeyed in that place for many years was asked by we who waited “How does one find one’s path? After a long silence he replied: “Our lives lay stretched out before us like a series of random stepping stones. We may choose only those stones we can reach with the stretch of our limbs. We reach out and test and touch and eventually make a decision. We step. If the stone holds us – life. If the stone cannot hold us and we find ourselves sinking with water rising upto our necks, we need not fear. Reaching with our arms we grasp the next stone and carry on. There is nothing to fear. In risking we see that everywhere is home”.