The Long and Winding Road

            As a minister I often find myself staring at maps. Sometimes it is to work out how to get to someone I am going to visit, or to find the location of a Church at which I am preaching. For those travelling by car it is usually easiest these days to put a postcode into a Sat Nav and point the car in the right direction. As a minister who doesn't drive, my relationship with maps is a little more complex. When my wife is driving, I am usually the navigator and then it's mainly a case of using Google Maps on my 'smart phone'. But if I need to visit someone I may be considering walking, going by bus or getting on my bike. So then I study the map a little more carefully, I look to see how straight the roads are, how steep the hills are, how bumpy the tracks. I look to see if there are paths between the roads and tracks that go across the fields. I need to consult timetables for busses, I use Google maps' satellite image option to find those handy little pathways between houses that aren't on the printed maps and I need to take into account the possibility that my bike may not be welcome along the path that I have chosen.

            All these things help me decide which route to take and which mode of transport will be the most appropriate, but there is more to it than that. Sometimes I need to choose a route and a mode of transport based on what I need to take with me and sometimes I choose a route that helps me to see something new about the community, to let me bump into new people and see places I haven't seen before. I also use my map studying time to help me understand things about the local community. Seeing where the shops and the pubs are, where the schools and churches are, and where people go to work. I even seek out historical maps to help me understand how a place has grown over time. All these things say a lot about a community.

            In the same way the routes we choose in life show people a great deal about our intended destinations and they also say a lot about how we intend to get there; The metaphorical routes as well as the physical ones. When we choose products in the supermarket it affects people across the world, when we choose a bank account or a utility company do we just choose the cheapest or do we also consider the environment and our impact on developing countries? What truths do we carry with us as we travel through life? What burdens? When we look back over the route maps of our lives will they tell a story about how we wanted to get to where we wanted to go by the easiest route? Or will they speak of generosity, hospitality, a love for God's creation and a concern for the stranger who needed our help?