Rethinking the Journey IV

Bruce Feiler, host of PBS's Walking the Bible miniseries, eloquently reflected that, "Some journeys we choose to go on...some journeys choose us." It's probably truer than most of us realize. Which journeys in your life have you felt an urge to begin? Which journeys have chosen you?

Many of you who work with students know that they come in and out of your life. Some we are able to stay in touch with, while others continue down a path that doesn’t intersect with ours again. That’s okay. That’s the way it’s meant to be. I don’t know what has become of many of my students. Occasionally they cross my mind, but they are on a journey all their own. What I do know is that while I was in a position of influence over these young lives, I fought for their hearts in a way that has been passed down to us through the great stories of yesterday and today.

Rethinking Awareness

How is this idea of a "mythic journey" communicated to the young people we encounter day to day? How do they come to the understanding that each trial they face presents a choice between hope and despair, possibility and cynicism, bondage and freedom? How do we make them aware of the existence of the journey and how it begins? There is no formula and easy step-by-step set of instructions for doing so. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Each young person is different and has faced different trials and made different choices in their lives.

Be Aware

How many times has a young person come up to you wanting your full attention, and you have given only half or a quarter of it? Maybe even at that, I’m being a little generous. So often, we as adults are physically present when the adolescents in our lives try to engage us, but mentally we are somewhere else. We nod and look in their general direction, but our minds are focused on bills, the work that is piling up, the television, or any number of other distractions. It is incumbent upon us to start being fully present in the moment, to be fully aware.

Rethinking the Choice II

The Polar Express (Van Allsburg 1985) captures this choice that faces the young: to set out or to settle? The hero in the story, a young boy on the verge of adolescence, has awoken one Christmas Eve with a troubling question: Is the magic of Christmas gone? You see, he overheard his parents saying that this Christmas marked “the end of the magic.” Isn’t that a question that we have all asked at one point or another? Where is the magic? Life overwhelms us with schedules, deadlines, and responsibilities. Our hearts crave the magic we encountered when we were young.

Suddenly a thunderous rumble shakes the foundations of the boy’s house. Hurriedly, he throws on his robe and rushes outside to see what is causing the clamor. To his utter astonishment, he sees an enormous train parked just in front of his lawn, where no tracks had ever been. The conductor steps out of one of the railcars and announces that the train is going to the North Pole. When he then asks the boy if he is ready to go, the boy hesitates. The movie version from 2004 portrays this moment of decision very well. To the boy’s left are the darkened houses of his neighborhood. It would be easy to give in to the cynicism and despair. It would require nothing of him to believe the lie, to believe that the magic really is gone. But . . . his heart cries out for something more. To his right is the brilliantly lit train headed for the adventure of the North Pole. For a moment, he steps away from the train. The conductor, sensing his indecision, pushes him to decide. He orders the train to start up and head out. Put into a situation where he has to decide, the boy at last chooses adventure and jumps aboard the train.

The journey is long and difficult, but in the end the boy encounters something greater than himself and, in the process, gains a better sense of what he has always possessed on the inside. The journey challenges him to once again believe, and to really see the meaning of Christmas. At the journey’s end, the conductor again slows the train to a stop in front of the boy’s house. Turning to the boy, he leans down and says, “One thing about trains . . . it doesn’t matter where they’re going. What matters is deciding to get on.”

Rethinking the Journey III

We have the opportunity to show students that life is a journey of mythical proportions. We need to let them know we understand that the hardships they face—even though they might seem trivial to us, with our longer experience—are very important and very real to them. We can show them how to view their challenges and trials as something greater, as smaller skirmishes in the cosmic battle between hope and despair. They long to know that they have an authentic and meaningful place in the story. The stories we loved as a child and that still touch us as adults hold the answers we seek.