The Final stop
The Holy Week was a much awaited time for all – some spent the three or four days off to finally go on a long-postponed vacation, while others made another kind of trip. While most people had a fun time with family
and friends, there were those that chose to be alone
by themselves. The latter embarked on a most essential journey of all – in search
for answers to life’s fundamental questions.
What is the purpose of earthly life? What is the sense in being born one day, and then struggle through a lifetime, only to die afterwards? Some people say there’s no need to complicate the issue – one only has to enjoy while still alive. But that’s the problem: Anyone who lives only for earthly pleasures soon complain of their lives being meaningless; the very things that used to excite them now bore them.
Philosophers say that life is a constant journey. If so, what keeps people at it? One can only sustain a journey if he has at least an idea of where it might take him. Such idea is his very reason for taking the trip.
Even the traveler who simply gets on the bus for the sake of taking a trip soon gets somewhere – back at the bus terminal. He may enjoy the joyride – but he is not a serious traveler. Traveling is essentially about getting somewhere… to a new experience of place, people, culture, food etc.
Many real travelers claim that traveling nourishes their mind and spirit. That’s very probably so. Coming to a new place, away from the one’s routine life back home, widens his view of the world, for sure. And his interactions with people of other places are likely to prompt him to check on himself, his own mindset and ways.
Normally, a person does not quite get the full picture of life from one angle alone. And so he changes his position – he travels. Then bit by bit it all becomes clearer to him, albeit not fully yet. And so he continues on his journey; traveling becomes a way of life for him.
Everyone on the planet is a traveler. Life on earth is said to be a kind of pilgrimage. Man is a pilgrim in constant search for meaning and enlightenment, whether he is aware of it or not.
Thus, even the one who cannot afford to make the trip to the next town is a traveler. This traveler hopes for life to be better for him in the next stop. And so he wants to get there. It is hope that summons his beautiful visions of what awaits for him on this trip called life.
It is common knowledge that there is a final stop to this earthly journey. Different people have different ideas of what it will be – either the ultimate end or yet another beginning. And that’s the thing about traveling; one is in for many surprises: being greeted by nice scenery, meeting someone nice, having a good time.
The nice thing about it is that it’s up to the traveler what to make of his experience. The same is true with the life journey. People have a choice what to make of their own.
Some people dread the summer sun; others travel great lengths for it. Some seek to be a star everywhere they go, they love the attention; others want to be unknowns, because anonymity gives them the freedom to do as they please.
People do various things, develop various traits and seek various engagements, in order to survive the often bewildering life journey. They invent various distractions. Sadly, they tend to get lost in their own inventions, and lose sight of what it is all about in the first place.
People need God. And they get into a lot of troubles because they don’t Him anymore. They forget that He is the One they wish to meet at the final stop of the journey.