A Walk along the Avenue

It was almost six a.m. and I was having my only physical sport – brisk walking – on my way to Carmel. The ringing of the Angelus compelled me to walk faster: the Mass was about to start, and I would have surely arrived late, as always. But looking around, I realized I was not the only one in a hurry.

As with most previous Sundays, there were runners along the avenue – this day having four. On some days, they would be in pairs, sometimes in a full marathon pack, and still sometimes there are none - although the plastic cups littered along the street would tell you that there were. But then this day, they were not the only ones in a hurry, either. The newspaper boys, the fruit vendors, even the early drivers already plying the street – these people were already starting their busy day this early. It was still six, but the race was on.

Life is indeed a race, a race in which everyone alive is obliged to join – no backing out, no substitution. But it is a different race, for it is not a matter of who finishes first. The challenge is not of speed but of discernment – the objective of the race of life is to enter a forest of lesser finish lines, in search of the real one. And there’s the rub, for one may indeed be very eager to run, to compete, only to find himself running towards the wrong goal, or settling on a minor one.

Those three Koreans who were walking groggily across the street, for example, may have thought that life was all about enjoying an all-night party, only to find themselves in a wretched state the morning after. Or the driver of the jeep that just passed by – perhaps the goal of life for him was to always be able to provide for his family. The newspaper boys, too, may also have finish lines of their own.

But from whatever path one starts off in this jungle of goals, there is only one ultimate finish line: the finish line God has set uniquely for each one of us, for each one’s fulfillment, for each one’s completion. This , again, is the challenge of discernment, of knowing where one’s finish line is, a finish that, no matter how gigantic or minute, how lowly or how lofty, one can always proudly say, “This is where I find meaning. This is what I am called for.”

I entered the sacristy just in time for the celebrant to make the sign of the cross. As I proceeded to get the basin and sprinkler for the Asperges, I thanked God that I had reached this morning’s finish line. But then, I thought, I still had a greater finish line: to be there, not anymore in the sacristy, but in the sanctuary. Of course, that’s a long way to go. But hopefully I’ll arrive there, God willing.