Cross Roads

I received a comment on an article I wrote for Associated Content that was appealing. It caused me to ponder my current situation.

Congratulations , you've got a job. You've joined tens of millions of working class slobs aching from the daily grind.[...]Soon you'll get a cubbyhole of your own and start paying [your bills], just as legions of faceless unsung plebe heroes do every day. Sure your life will be boring and unromantic- you'll be a solid cog in the machine- but much less dangerous and chaotic as having one foot planted in the gutter and the other in fringe Bohemia.

Sure there's a little bitterness in the tone of the author, but the idea is clear. There is some comfort and security in just doing what everyone else does. It's a proven method (for the most part) of making life's journey as safely as possible. And isn't that what people want? Safety?

But just as quickly I remembered, yet again, these quotes by Richard Bach. It counters the above mentality.

The Master answered and said "Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going it's own way, knowing only it's own crystal self. Each creature in it's own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom. The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!' But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried 'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah come to save us all!' And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure." But they cried the more, 'Savior!' all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior."

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And [the Messiah] said unto them, "If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?"

"Of course, Master!" cried the many. "It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!"

"No matter what those tortures, no matter how difficult the task?"

"Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked," said they.

"And what would you do," the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face and said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What would you do then?"

And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood.