On The Go

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from...
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding, v.5

In the last six weeks I have traveled over 15,500 miles to and from destinations for family vacation and personal continuing education- time with family, friends, professional colleagues, and fellow faith pilgrims in places both familiar and new; via cars, trains, buses, boats, trains, and my own two feet, from sea level to 12,000 ft. above while on the ground, and 40,000 while sailing the clouds. I've gone, seen, and done more beyond my immediate home in six weeks than most people on earth do in a lifetime. All of this is even insignificant to thousands of travelers who do so regularly for business and pleasure.

Back in the place I now call home, sitting on a sofa reflecting, it all seems like and dream filled with other times, places, and people, yet people, places, and times that are now part of who I am - somehow different from and the same as who I was before the journeys began.

We human beings are a curious and seeking sort, always wondering what's over the ridge, or across the water, and even beyond life itself. We have always been and are still on the move, whether hunting and gathering food, exploring new lands, or traveling to distant planets and beyond. Our travels and explorations usually begin in the time and spaces of imagination, often leading to the tangible journeys and destinations of life.

But wherever we go, we are always home, because home is not only the place beneath our feet, at the ends of our fingers, and before our eyes, but that place deep inside each and every one of us. This place is always the same yet ever changing, a place that is ours alone, that we also share with all humanity, the One Eternal Presence.

We rest in this place even as we begin the next imagination, the next journey, the next pilgrimage, the next adventure in the time and space we call Life.