Carved in stone

We go through many doors...

Sometimes we hold someone's image in our mind as one unchangeable. No matter the passage of time, we think of that person from that one time, perhaps even from one act or circumstance. In effect, we have carved that person in stone.

But no one stays the same. No one is set forever.

Perhaps that is why Deuteronomy 5:8 instructs You shall not make for yourself any graven image. We are prone to set things in stone, and then worship our ideal as true. When we do that, we are so wrong.

I look on my own past, and sometimes wish I had learned earlier and understood sooner. I wish I could have let go more. And matured younger. And stepped out sooner rather than later. I wish I had been more open, more able to question, and realized the difference between an image and a true self.

I wish I had not feared so much, and done so little. In a word, I wish that a lot of my past had been different. And I realize, it is all part of journey.

Michael Himes says if we say we know someone like a book, then we really don't know that person at all. Because we are not books. We are human beings.

If I need time to grow, if I make mistakes I later regret, or act in a way that I later abandon, then I need to allow another the same freedom. It doesn't matter if I cannot see a change, cannot discern the person's regret or difference.

All that matters is that I set that person free. That I let her find herself on her journey. Even as I need to find myself in journey.