Ancient Crossroads

Bill B. Xiamen University
"This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'" Jer 6:16

"I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost.

Years ago, while climbing "Five Old Men Peaks" behind Nanputuo Temple with my son, who was eight then, we came to a fork in the pathway and I asked, "Which way?" When Shannon pointed to the right, I asked why, and he said, "It goes up. Up is always more fun."

Each morning we stand at a new crossroad in life. Do our decisions take us up--or down? What should I study in college, and where? Should I marry, and when? Should I go to English Corner or stay home and sleep?

Most day-to-day decisions seem trivial, but over the decades they are the small steps that complete the "1,000 mile journey" we call life. Do our daily decisions lift us up or lead us downward? Bring us closer to our goal, or further from it? And how do we make our decisions?

In "The Art of War," Sunzi said to, "Know yourself." What goals, motives, priorities and values direct our decisions? Do we base our decisions solely on our own experience, and the short-term benefits, or do we seek wisdom to make decisions that reinforce the unique purpose of our own lives. In Jeremiah 6, Jerusalem was urged to:

1. "Stand at the crossroads and look." How many times do we race through the crossroads without even thinking about alternative paths? We already know what we want, and we just go for it, blind to other options, and sometimes we must retrace our steps with our tails between our legs.

2. "Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is." If I were walking through swamps of quicksand, I'd rather follow a reliable map than chance getting sucked under. Fortunately, though life can seem like a swamp of quicksand, we have both a map and a Personal Guide to help us get through it. The swamp shifts daily, but the Ancient Paths and the One who guides us through them do not. The basic principles for how to live, rather than just get through life, are recorded clearly in our Father's Word, but a good example is always better than a lecture, so He also sent his Son to show us, firsthand, how to live.

3. "Walk in it and you will find rest for your souls." It is not enough to just know the path; we must walk in it. We will not be carried. We must rise daily, look at the crossroad, discern the Ancient Path--and then lace up our hiking shoes and walk.

Follow the Crowd or Keep the Course? We can live each day deliberately, with direction and purpose, or we can wander aimlessly, without direction--like the vast majority of people on our little planet. No wonder Jesus said, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matt. 7:13,14

The path to failure was widened not by God but by the countless people trampling blindly down it. The road to life and purpose is narrow only because so few people choose it. But both paths, the wide and the narrow, are before each of us daily. We can choose the Ancient Path--or we can refuse. As Jeremiah said of Jerusalem, which persisted in going its own way, "But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'" Jer. 6:16

Today we face yet another Crossroads. Don't rush through that crossroads blindly. Stop, look, seek wisdom, and then follow the Ancient Path that is the surest route to purpose, fulfillment and joy.

The following story about Shannon was adapted from "Magic Xiamen--Guide to Xiamen").

Look UP! On a crisp November morning, Susan and Matthew went shopping and Shannon and I took the road less traveled—the trail up the mountain behind Nánputuó Temple and monastery, past the sign that says “No foreigners beyond this sign,” and over the crest.

We drank deeply of the silence as we picked our way over damp boulders covered in lichen. We waded through ferns, and ducked beneath the grayish green moss covered branches. At times I sunk into reverie, imagining that we were blazing trails where no man had gone before. And every time, I was rudely yanked back into reality by the sight of Chinese characters carved deeply into the granite cliffs by ancient poets seeking immortality with a hammer and chisel centuries before Eric the Red took up real estate in Greenland.

I paused at one fork (or maybe a chopstick) in the path and asked Shannon, “Which way?”
“Up!” he said.
“Why up?” I asked.
“Because up is more fun," Shannon said.

It takes a decade or more for children to unlearn their inborn inclination to climb. By adulthood, many no longer know which way is up, or care. Yet there lingers a memory of Up, and a vague discontent for which we compensate by looking out, or in, but seldom Up. As Thoreau put it,
“We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.”

"What is man that you are mindful of him...You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings... You made him ruler over the works of your hands..." Psalm 8:4-6

I suspect that children are a different species, a little lower than the angels and a little higher than man, given us that we may rediscover childhood’s marvelous mix of ambition tempered with contentment. Of such is the kingdom.

Shannon and I sat on the sun-baked granite summit of the Five Old Men Mountains behind Nanputuo Temple, and I penned in my notebook,

UP
The simplest seed, entombed
ignobly on its noggin,
impugns the claims of gravity
and turning, strives to gain
the unseen sun.
Bill B. (Nov. 1997)

Life’s magic lies in looking up!

Of course, in China at least, when lo0king up, watch where you're walking.
www.amoymagic.com