Blog # 177 More Shoes

Blog # 177 More Shoes Recently I published a blog relating how my shoes were an inspiration to me as a role model for perfect obdience. This morning I was looking over some notes from back in 1995 and the shoes I was wearing then were also an inspiration to me. I decided to write another blog on shoes. Here it is. One day last week I decided the 'life' of my jogging shoes had ended. It was a decision that seemed a bit important to me and was colored with a bit of sadness. The shoes had served well, giving comfort and protection since 1991. I estimated we had covered more than five thousand miles together. The shoes and I had gone on vacation together in far away places like Oregon, California, and New York. Recently we had been walking together over at the local hospital or around the track at the local high school. It is almost a mile from here to the high school track. On the way over we were going someplace, to the track. On the way back we were going home. In between we were just walking. Most times it was twenty-one times around the track for a distance of five miles. We covered every inch of it together. I was following the pattern of daily exercise recommended for good health. But in addition to that, and more importantly for me, the habit of walking all these miles the first thing each morning was a sort of guarantee I wanted for having a special and extended time each day for prayer meditation and reflection. Many of the thoughts in my Sunday homilies came to me when I was walking in the mornings. But my shoes did not and could not know any of this. They were with me and were part of it, but did not know what they were doing. I was maintaining good health and growing in my relationship with the Lord. The shoes were wearing out. What has all of this to do with what I might share with you in a blog? Here is how I see it. In an analogous way I saw in my walking down the Steet each morning on my way to the high school track as God continuously creating the world and all of us living on earth today. None of us is here by acccident, none of us is unknown to God, none of us creates his or herself anew each morning or starts our heart beating as I wind up my watch to keep it going for another day. In my analogy I imagine my shoes being like someone who does not know or love God. They are obedient to God in all they do just as my shoes are obedient to me and the sun as it shines, the rain is wet, and as a stone falls to the ground when I let it go obeys God naturally as a simple creature of God. If I had a companion walking with me it would be very different. We would go together down the street,with a right turn on Third Street and a left on Elm all the way to the track which is our goal. I know my companion and my companion knows me. we share our lives as we travel. That is the way I see it wth God and those who know God and travel along with God to the place He and I want to go, call it Heaven if you will, or happiness and peace or all the nanmes we give to the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, or then, finally, death, which I see in my analogy as the front door of my house with my companion and I going through that door together in the greatest joy and love I could ever imagine called Eternal Life.