everything that would get us off-course, and keep returning and returning to our personal charts to make sure we’re getting there! (52)
I just went back and re-read my previous posts on her ideas and I don’t find that I mentioned her reference to being on a ship, which is what she’s talking about when she says “personal charts” above. So if you’re on a cruise, for example, you’ll get up every morning and put on your clothes and go to the dining room and eat your meals and spend your day, but you’re not in the same place you were yesterday. The ship has moved on. And if you haven’t made any plans or set any goals, if you don’t have the maps and charts that will keep you on course, then you’ll just drift. As she says, all through the journey there are winds and cross-currents that will tend to shove the ship off course, and if the captain isn’t constantly “refocusing, redirecting, recentering,” then the destination will never be reached. I love the idea of “returning and returning” to the right course, partly because that phrase makes allowance for the fact that we do get off course, and we can always get back on, God helping us. There’s a real physicality to this whole image; I can feel the tug and turn as the captain pulls on the wheel to get the ship back on course. So right now, I need to turn the wheel and finish this post (which is hard for me to do; I have a terrible tendency to go back and read, and re-read, and re-re-read my deathless prose), and go finally get the cleanup finished from last Friday’s reception , and get busy on the task list I have on my Google calendar page, and fix that chicken curry dish I want to make for dinner . . . you get the picture. Where’s your ship going? Is it on course, or do you need to say “no” to the thing that pulling on you?
Debi, you help me more than my ability to say. ( I discovered her in the 1980’s ) but it is you that helps me today.