Oh The Places You’ll Go
I was sitting at a stoplight yesterday and I glanced over at the driver who was in the car next to me. He was staring out into space and looked rather weary. The light changed, I turned left and he proceeded straight and we moved on to the rest of our day. I wondered where he was going.
As we drove on, I thought of all the places I’ve been in the last week and as I counted them up, I realized that the number of places I’ve been in the last week was above 30! For some reason, that seemed like a lot of places to be in just a week. But since I could recall the reason I’d been at each spot, I suppose it wasn’t too crazy.
All this reminded me of the Dr. Seuss book, “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” Yes, yes… the places we go. I pulled the book out to give it a read again. While it’s commonly given out at graduations and similar occasions, it is just fine for a Thursday as well. But it occurred to me that Dr. Seuss did not include a lot of the places I’ve gone to in the last week.
Dr. Seuss neglected to tell me about going to the grocery store. His book is fun but doesn’t offer words around the need to shop for food. And yet, I have a deep appreciation for my local market and the food it brings to me from farms and factories around the country or world. That I can buy fresh produce that is grown far away is nothing short of a miracle to me.
Dr. Seuss did not extoll the wonders of the FedEx, UPS, or Post Offices. Preparing something to send off to someone is one thing but getting it to them is another. I wrote a few cards, sent a few packages, and generally tried to fling tangible bits of love to people I care about. And happily, these places will deliver those things around the country for me.
Dr. Seuss also did not tell me about going to the hospital. He did not sing the praises of visiting the Emergency Room, the third floor, or even the parking area. But I was there in the ER with a neighbor who had complications from surgery. Health care is such a complicated system, but it was a gift for her to go there and find some relief.
In fact, as I review my list of places that I’ve been in the past week, none of them were included in Dr. Seuss’s book. Likely he skipped over them because his book was meant to be inspirational instead of ordinary. But I seem to live my life more on the ordinary side of things.
But I will tell you one of the things about the places I’ve been that has been universally true: in each place I’ve been, God has also been there. God was in the grocery store, in the UPS store, and in the hospital. God was not only with me but also present in each person I met in those places. God’s love was readily evident to me in the hospital and a little harder to see in the Post Office – but it was there all the same in the small gestures of holding the door, offering a smile, and one person helping another with a towering stack of packages to mail. God is with us in all the places we go.
As we move throughout our days, visiting places and people, remember that God goes with you to each place and is present with each person. And whether we are weary (like the man at the stoplight) or energized, God is with us and that presence is a gift. May we pause to notice it.
