Meeting Truth

Writes author Colin Fleming:

We fight for so much control in our lives, and we feel frightfully unmoored without it. We have voices in our cars directing us when to bang that right turn, devices on our wrists telling us how many steps we’ve taken. We deal in constant analytics, sometimes evaluating the quality of our own thoughts and words by how many likes they rack up on social media. Everything is a comparison with something else.

Humans can surprise themselves when they’re untethered. Thoreau advised that we should walk in the woods as though “never to return” – which is to say, being cool with getting lost – and that our heart comes back in a purer form than when we left.

When we get lost, we necessarily forsake control, all but saying to nature, “Here I am, funnel me in.” In those moments there’s a good chance you’ll meet a little buddy of yours, who often shows up only when your guard is down. He’s not a bad guy, but people have a knack for driving him away when they’re hyperfocused on daily tasks – even tiny ones, like trying to go the “right” way based on what the map says.

Who is he? The truth. Sometimes it’s the reality of things you’ve done, things you’re great at that you don’t give yourself enough credit for, or changes you should make.

It is impossible to walk purely in the moment, without worrying about what turn to take, and not encounter the truth at least for a while. He comes unbeckoned, but sans surly attitude. The truth’s like a traveling companion as you crunch leaves underfoot.

Spending time with reality is a lot less scary and stressful than trying to duck him. But we often have to meet the truth in spite of ourselves. Being lost in the woods cuts out the difficult part, making that formal decision to face things.

– Colin Fleming
(from “Take a Hike and Get Lost”)
The Wall Street Journal
July 29, 2020

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Mistwalking
• I Caught a Glimpse of a God . . .
• Holy Encounters Where Two Worlds Meet
• Meeting (and Embodying) the Lover God
• The Landscape Is a Mirror
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• In This In-Between Time
• The Mysticism of Trees
• Celtic Spirituality: “A Fluid, Transmutable Affair”
• The Prayer Tree
• Journeying Into the Truth . . . Valiantly, of Course!

Image: “Mahad at the Threshold” by Michael J. Bayly (2018)