"I am the Way"

Sometimes a thought grips you such that you cannot allow it to go unwritten, or in this case, unblogged.

I will be sitting for my Driving Test this Friday, and having seen virtually all my friends get their licences before me, I've heard numerous stories about the test, including the ubiquitous tales of bribery. And as I prepare for my turn, I can't help but ponder this question.

Uncle Philip, my instructor (the same one who taught Audrey) told me not to worry. He said he'd talk to the JPJ officer(s). I don't know if he means that I don't need to bribe, or if he's somehow included money for the bribe in the fees he's been charging me all this while.

As far as I'm concerned, the fees are reasonable enough; my piano and art teachers were far more exorbitant compared to the fees charged by commercial music and art centres.

But while I was walking my dogs after today's driving lesson, two things came to mind: Frederick Buechner's essay 'The Road Goes On' and Jesus' words of reinstation to Peter.


Buechner quotes Tolkien's Bilbo Baggins in that essay;

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then?
I cannot say.

And he ends with these words;

The world is full of dark shadows to be sure, both the world without and the world within, and the road we've all set off on is long and hard and often hard to find, but the word is trust. Trust the deepest intuitions of your own heart. Trust the source of your own truest gladness. Trust the road. Above all else, trust him. Trust him. Amen.


Here is the account in the Gospel of John:

The third time [Jesus] said to [Peter], "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!"

--John 21:17-19 (NIV)


What I realised was this: there are times when we will be lead where we do not want to go. I'm not directly referring to driving and bribery, but I realised that I was allowing fear to take over me. And yet here we find that Jesus' commission to Peter was hardly encouraging: what kind of leader tries to spur his follower on with a foretaste of death?

Am I sometimes being led where I do not want to go? And yet the road 'goes ever on and on'. Buechner opened his essay with the famous John 14:6 verse;

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

He is the God of the road, the God of the way. The God who is the way. Of what should I be afraid? Even when we are led where we do not want to go, there is nothing to fear. Not because God is there, or even because God sends us, but in a mysterious way, God is the path we take. And so as the proverb-writer said, the steps of the wise are directed by God.


He is the God of the path, the God of the petal shower. The God of the petal-showered path.

Amen.