MINISTER’S MUSINGS
Rev. Sarah Clark
Peterborough Unitarian Church
June, 2005

"To learn something new, take the path you took yesterday." John Burroughs

There is great excitement in first impressions. A few weeks ago I saw a pelican for the first time. I laughed and clapped my hands. What a glory is a pelican! How did the creator ever come up with such a useful and humorous design.

Yet I have seen sea gulls since childhood, and never cease to be amazed at the glory of the sea gull. The soaring, gliding, cacophonous seagull! Another design award for the creator! Now after all these years, I see not only sea gulls, but each sea gull and not only each sea gull, but this particular sea gull on this particular day showing me something new about what it is to be a sea gull. The sea gull strut and sway when earthbound they turn into Charlie Chaplin-like walkers. The sea gull snap and flurry as sea gull obstreperous pushes away sea gull meek and mild. Sea gulls with broken wings, sea gulls nesting, sea gulls dive bombing as humans wave sticks to protect their hapless human heads from the depredations of claw, beak and worse. Each sea gull teaches me anew of seagullness.

Were I have to chance to see a pelican a second time what news would I learn from pelican world? Perhaps see a pelican lunching with that great trencher of a bill? Stare eye to beady eye. Hear the pelican voicing complaints or delights? Once is not enough – to know a path, we must traverse it often, learning anew each time.

In a world in which novelty and new experiences rank high, it is good to consider John Burroughs’ words – to retain a few paths we walk frequently learning something new each time. Our spiritual paths are such paths, whether we walk the path of prayer, meditation, reading, church worship, song, we need to keep returning to our spiritual paths to revitalize ourselves and to learn something new from the twists and turns, the sudden sunlight and rain, the branches that slap our faces and those that we can hold firm and rely on to keep us upright; spiritual paths reveal new insights each time we walk them. The more often we put our feet on the path, the more we are strengthened and renewed. What have you learned today on your spiritual path?