I find myself always returning to the journey as the central metaphor for the human condition. While one might suggest that the journey is overused and like other dead metaphors has lost its luster, I would argue that we are continually re-imagining the journey narrative. God may have created the world in six days; we re-create the world with every breath we take.
I remember as a child my mother told me a story about a Journey that begins with a conversation we have with God before we are born. Before we were born and still in our mothers womb, she said, God whispered into our ear all the secrets of the universe.
“Everything that God knows was revealed to us.”
We were enveloped by his omniscience, cocooned by his love. He revealed the depth of His creation and invited us to dip our toes in the currents.
“But there was a catch,” said my Mom. “The LORD forewarned us that once born into the world we may never reveal what we had learned and experienced to anyone.”
God sealed my lips. And at the moment of birth, at that moment when I was ejected from the light into the dark, He ended the conversation and swore me to a secrecy so profound and so complete that I forgot it all; the wisdom, the clarity, the warmth, the profound sense of completeness…all of it.
I was about nine years old when she told me this story and completely wrapped up in her narrative. Had I been older or a bit more thoughtful I think I would have asked her, “How can we know that God had embraced us and revealed all these things if we can’t recall the conversation ever having taken place?”
Life's Lessons on a Road Less Travelled 