"There's no place like ______."
"Follow the ______ Brick Road."
We all know the movie and it's memorable characters, delightful songs ("If I only had a brain"), and fantastic world. It's a wonderful children's story, and like so many stories, it also contains deeper meanings, morals, & lessons which we hope will be carried throughout their lives.
I was wondering the other day, how often do we live like these characters in our daily lives? Instead of learning from them, we find ourselves mimicking their faults and failings! How often do we lack courage? Or compassion, love & heart? How often do we bury our heads in the proverbial sand, refusing to use our brains to think clearly & rationally about difficult topics? How often do we feel lost, alone, and long for a place to call home, a place to belong?
Unfortunately, in real life, there are no Ruby Slippers, no Wonderful Wizard, and no Good Witch of the North. There are no easy answers to the difficult and troubling questions. Life can be so confusing & strange; unexpected events occur and dangers seem to come with startling frequency. The Yellow Brick Road of life offers no promise of safety, in fact quite the opposite. But what is there to do? There is no other path available to us? Like it or not, all we can do is take each day as it comes and "follow the Yellow Brick Road."
And yet, the journey is made it so much more bearable -even enjoyable- and certainly more memorable, by companionship; sharing the journey with fellow travelers. Each traveler is seeking something different from the journey. Each has different vulnerabilities which they must help one another overcome, (dousing the flames on Scarecrow, oiling Tin Man to keep him from rusting). And this is true in our own lives as well. We try so hard to be independent, (as American's we are trained to be) when what the journey truly requires is inter-dependence. King David of ancient Israel had the Mighty Men, Jesus had the 12 apostles. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. We cannot make it alone!
At the end of their journey, (spoiler alert!) it was revealed that the very things they thought they lacked, the things they had been seeking, they had actually possessed all along. It took the dangers, the trials, and the difficulties of the journey to reveal their hidden attributes. How often do we fail to see our own gifts and strengths because we have convinced ourselves of our own weakness and inadequacy? And I know I for one dislike & fear the events in life which force me to stretch beyond my comfort zone. Often, however, that stretching is what was required to reveal capacity I never knew I had before.
Even Dorothy, who longed to be home, possessed the ability throughout the journey. I'm not talking about the Ruby Slippers. While yes, they would transport her back to Kansas, is that truly home? Is home a place? A house? An address with a familiar structure? If you have ever returned to the house you grew up in, years after your family has moved away, you know the answer; that place is no longer home, because the people who made that house a home are no longer there. The people you call family make it home. In Dorothy's case, her companions were caricatures of her biological family. But at times I have lived far away from any biological family, and my "family" were the people I was living life with; my fellow companions for that portion of the Yellow Brick Road. I currently have friends that are as close as brothers to me, whom, without hesitation, I consider to be family. So it seems to me, that no matter where you are along the Yellow Brick Road of life, if you are surrounded by your family, then even in the midst of the journey, you can always be home.
And as we all know:
"Follow the ______ Brick Road."
We all know the movie and it's memorable characters, delightful songs ("If I only had a brain"), and fantastic world. It's a wonderful children's story, and like so many stories, it also contains deeper meanings, morals, & lessons which we hope will be carried throughout their lives.
I was wondering the other day, how often do we live like these characters in our daily lives? Instead of learning from them, we find ourselves mimicking their faults and failings! How often do we lack courage? Or compassion, love & heart? How often do we bury our heads in the proverbial sand, refusing to use our brains to think clearly & rationally about difficult topics? How often do we feel lost, alone, and long for a place to call home, a place to belong?
Unfortunately, in real life, there are no Ruby Slippers, no Wonderful Wizard, and no Good Witch of the North. There are no easy answers to the difficult and troubling questions. Life can be so confusing & strange; unexpected events occur and dangers seem to come with startling frequency. The Yellow Brick Road of life offers no promise of safety, in fact quite the opposite. But what is there to do? There is no other path available to us? Like it or not, all we can do is take each day as it comes and "follow the Yellow Brick Road."
And yet, the journey is made it so much more bearable -even enjoyable- and certainly more memorable, by companionship; sharing the journey with fellow travelers. Each traveler is seeking something different from the journey. Each has different vulnerabilities which they must help one another overcome, (dousing the flames on Scarecrow, oiling Tin Man to keep him from rusting). And this is true in our own lives as well. We try so hard to be independent, (as American's we are trained to be) when what the journey truly requires is inter-dependence. King David of ancient Israel had the Mighty Men, Jesus had the 12 apostles. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. We cannot make it alone!
At the end of their journey, (spoiler alert!) it was revealed that the very things they thought they lacked, the things they had been seeking, they had actually possessed all along. It took the dangers, the trials, and the difficulties of the journey to reveal their hidden attributes. How often do we fail to see our own gifts and strengths because we have convinced ourselves of our own weakness and inadequacy? And I know I for one dislike & fear the events in life which force me to stretch beyond my comfort zone. Often, however, that stretching is what was required to reveal capacity I never knew I had before.
Even Dorothy, who longed to be home, possessed the ability throughout the journey. I'm not talking about the Ruby Slippers. While yes, they would transport her back to Kansas, is that truly home? Is home a place? A house? An address with a familiar structure? If you have ever returned to the house you grew up in, years after your family has moved away, you know the answer; that place is no longer home, because the people who made that house a home are no longer there. The people you call family make it home. In Dorothy's case, her companions were caricatures of her biological family. But at times I have lived far away from any biological family, and my "family" were the people I was living life with; my fellow companions for that portion of the Yellow Brick Road. I currently have friends that are as close as brothers to me, whom, without hesitation, I consider to be family. So it seems to me, that no matter where you are along the Yellow Brick Road of life, if you are surrounded by your family, then even in the midst of the journey, you can always be home.
And as we all know:
"There's no place like home!"
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