Worship Video from September 22

Some have asked for another peek at the worship video from Saturday. Here is a link to the site from which it came.

The Road Less Traveled on the Main Traveled Road

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

While my family was on vacation last week in Door County, WI we attended the debut of a new musical production entitled “The Main Traveled Road.” From the start I was skeptical. First, I did not like the title as Robert Frost is about the only poet I know anything about and the musical’s title was obviously intended to reference the audience to one of Frost’s most famous poems “The Road Not Taken.” And second, (and here you can see how utterly stupid we {read Steve} can be in assessing things) I did not like that fact that the title paired the word “Main” with the word “Road.” “Main” is a street not a road. Main Street. Not Main Road. Yes, I know, utterly stupid…

Anyway. The musical was actually quite good. It was set in 19th century rural Wisconsin but really could have been set anywhere. For me, the point of the whole production was that we all travel down the same road (the main traveled road) where we make decisions regarding our relationships with each other. And as we travel down this “main traveled road,” these decisions, and how they manifest in our interactions, have implications that are lasting in either life-giving or life-draining ways. As we travel this main traveled relational road, the decisions that we make with regard to our relationships are rarely neutral; they can either breathe life into those around us, or they can wound, maim, or even destroy.

As I reflect on this main traveled road of relationships that we all walk; I wonder if Frost’s “road less traveled by” is more a way of walking on this main traveled road than it is a separate path that we should seek to follow.

Perhaps the road less traveled is a walk on the main traveled road that pays special attention to those fellow travelers that we meet along the way; a walk where we see and embrace the fellow travelers with the open hand of friendship and a heart for our common joy-filled and often thorny journey down this main traveled road.

And

perhaps

Jesus

his teachings

his death

and

his

resurrection

are

a

faded

and tattered

map

for us

as we journey

together

down the main traveled road.

A River Runs Through It - Haunted by Waters