Sojourn ( def., to dwell in a place
temporarily then to travel on)
People may
have asked you when you were younger, “If you had a chance to change your name,
what would you change it to?” A woman who
made a mark in American history named Isabella Baumfree (1797-1888) changed her
name to Sojourner Truth after being
converted to foundational principles of the Christian faith. In her earlier years she had been bought,
sold, and abused as a slave; in later years she became a moral reformer and
traveled and settled briefly (sojourned) throughout the Eastern United States
articulating her message. She was named
in 2014 as one of the Smithsonian Institution’s “100 Most Significant
Americans.”
I had never
heard of a person named ‘Sojourner’ before, but I immediately liked the name. I’ve been called various things in my earlier
life (various nicknames, titles, roles) but if somebody called me Sojourner now
I would probably be immediately drawn to them because of their insight. We are
all sojourners throughout our entire life upon this earth whether we realize it
or not.
Several
years ago, I explained in one of my weblog postings why I liked many of John
Denver’s songs. One of those songs has a
lyric in it that goes,
“Lost and alone on some forgotten
highway, traveled by many remembered by few.
Looking for something that I can believe in, looking for something that
I’d like to do with my life.”
He goes on
to say that,
“Tomorrow is open. . . ” and “There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me, my life
is worth the living, I don’t need to see the end.”
I perceive
that many are like that. And I would concur strongly with singer/poet John
Denver that ‘life is worth the living’
but differ with him in that it does help a lot to ‘see the end.’
Instead of
really looking, really exploring, hopefully finding, and finally, someday,
settling into a lifestyle that will be richly rewarding, far too many just take
what comes along and then continue day-after-day to feel “lost and alone,” because they settled for something less than that
which was destined could have been theirs.
So, where does
a person look to overcome their ennui or discomfort with their situation or
station in life?
Know that
there is ‘a spirit [to] ‘guide [us] and
‘a light that shines for me’ that can give direction and example. Open your books (or a public library’s books)
and read some biographies of people who made a mark on their world. In another weblog I commented on one such
book that I would highly recommend:
David Brooks’s (2015) The Road to Character. You will find in it many, perhaps just like
you, who were on the road or ‘forgotten highway’ but took the right turn. (In addition you might read once again Robert
Frost’s little poem The Road Not Taken
and see what it tells you.)
But it isn’t
just in books that we find direction.
There are living people all around who can be of great help. And there is a Spirit to guide you.
Once we find
our direction and come to sense our destination, however it is revealed to us,
or by whom, we need to never again feel that our life is without purpose.
One final
hint: Find someone or some place to be
of service to or in and you will much more likely to find the ‘light that shines for me.’
