Post High School to 25 years old Saturdays 6:00-7:30pm
Article from the
Wheaton Record/Wheaton
College by Eric Siewert I
remember lying in my bed at eight years old and being afraid of Heaven.
At eight years old, Heaven was a vague concept representing the end of
life that I couldn’t quite seem to grasp. Something about Heaven being
the end scared me.
Ten years later,
I still can’t claim to have a good grasp of what Heaven is, how it works
or what it will be like. And even 10 years in the future, I will still
have a fear of endings. True, I don’t
worry about Heaven as much as I used to. Somewhere along the way, I was
able to let it go and leave it to God.
But my ongoing
hatred of endings embodies itself in the end of journeys and characters
and in my love of “continuation” stories; sagas that go past the first
book, stories that are too interested in the journey of the characters
to come up with a fitting ending within the pages of one tome. I know I’m not
alone in my love of this type of journey, either.
Proof of the
popularity of “continuing” stories is all around us. We see it every
time we enter a bookstore or check out a sequel to a popular movie.
Masses of people flock to these journey-oriented tales. Millions of
readers are attracted to the seven-book phenomenon of Harry Potter that
will be completed this summer.
Something inside
of us recognizes the importance of the journey in life even though we so
often seem to care more about the end than we do about how we get there.
This especially rings clear during the school year—for a student; life
is marked by weekends, the end of quads, the end of semesters and the
end of the school year. Dates are set for events and when the
advertisements go up and our excitement is bubbling—we forget about
everything else and start counting down the days.
It’s as if we
think life will be magically complete when we hit that end point. This
attitude reminds me of the books I read as a little kid which always
seemed to end with “and they lived happily ever after”—as if it could
really happen that way. Life can’t be Heaven on earth, but if we step
aside and accept that then we can enjoy the beauty of the journey.
The end is
coming. No matter what we do in life, there will be an end—it’s
inevitable. But rushing towards it and anticipating it more than caring
about what we do with our lives just adds needless commotion to our
lives. Our days are marked by rushing on to class, Saga, and chapel, but
at the end of the day we’re still in bed with worries and
aspirations—the same worries and aspirations we would have even if we
took life at half the pace.
Instead, we
should acknowledge a lifestyle and mindset that “embraces the journey.”
The appeal of the continuation stories shows that it isn’t that hard to
embrace the journey because we’ve already been wired to enjoy it.
No one’s journey
is the same so there is no blanket secret to enjoying the experience of
life. I certainly can’t give you a three-step formula for embracing your
personal journey.
Still, sometimes
when we look too far ahead, it seems we only end up holding ourselves
back. If we are constantly looking too far down the road, we’ll forget
the journey and without the journey there can be no end. Perhaps it’s
best to enjoy the journey as God intended, a day at a time. Stephen King
writes in his Dark Tower series: “I hope you came to hear the tale, and
not just munch your way through the pages for the ending.” He’s
referring to his own book, but I think that God’s up there saying the
same thing to us—I hope you came to live the life and not just munch
through the days until the ending.
