Daily Devotion - Friday, July 8

Finding the Right Road

"Never look down to test the ground
Before taking your next step:
Only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon
Will find his right road."
Markings
Dag Hammarskjold
Former Secretary-General of the United Nations

Dag Hammarskjold was a person of incredible insight. His spiritual diary, Markings, is filled with some pretty remarkable statements, statements that demand some attention. Today’s statement is a reminder to us of a vision we need to claim.

This devotional week focused on patriotism. These words seem helpful. During this decade many of us (probably all of us) have spent quite a bit of time looking down and testing the ground. One way of describing our post 9/11 lifestyles is that we are consumed with looking for where the land mines might be. The future still seems quite shaky when we listen to all the analysts (looking down). I contend that when each of us fix our eyes on dreaming about and creating our best future, we will start looking out at the horizon.

Hammarskjold reminds us that “getting on the right road” requires vision, vision into the distant tomorrows. What are the dreams you are dreaming? What work are you doing now because your eye is fixed on a far-horizon dream?

It seems there is a distant horizon out there where peace is a reality. It seems there is a distant horizon where creation is singing the same song. It seems there is a world where there can be sharing by all and scarcity for none. That horizon can best be defined by folks who have lived in solidarity with marginalized persons of a number of cultures.

Working toward sustaining a global village where there is such hope may be a far horizon, but it is the deepest patriotic thing that we can do. Will you join me in this venture?

--Ben Keckler
07.08.11