I walk my neighborhood north of Austin quite often, and I thought I’d found every trail there was to find.
I figured out the shortcut to the mailbox, I found the path up to the smokehouse, and I even discovered the walkway to the former kayak drop.
Some of these unpaved trails through the cedar woods are marked, and some are not.
Recently, I came upon a new path that reminded me a bit of Indiana Jones’ leap of faith in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the scene: Indiana is trying to save his father by retrieving the Holy Grail. He has snaked his way through the spinning blades (get that? Indy hates snakes!), and he’s solved the puzzle spelling the Latin name for Jesus Christ, and now he has to find “The Path of God.” The clue is “Only in the leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.”
It’s a leap of faith.
Indiana sticks out his foot into the crevasse and begins to fall but instead, lands on a narrow walkway. The camera pans to the side revealing the walkway was painted to blend into the background. It was always there but unseen.
My clue was given to me by a neighbor who claimed there was a pathway from the lower cul-de-sac to the trash dumpster (so not a “path of God,” but a path to the garbage; I’m going with the metaphor anyway). If it existed, it would be a handy shortcut I hadn’t yet found.
I walked to the cul-de-sac and saw this:
No path here, I thought. Sure, I could trudge through the underbrush, but there be snakes in that grass! I hate snakes!
Even so, I took a leap of faith at my neighbor’s direction. I moved two steps to the right, and behold:
Sure enough, there was a trail here! I couldn’t follow it with my eyes all the way to the dumpster, so there still was trust involved, but I could see the way.
Isn’t that how life is sometimes? Just when we’re about to give up on a way through, just when we’re thinking we’re going to have to figure out a way around, someone gives us a clue. We take two steps to the right. We trust the beginning of the path will continue and bring us to a proper conclusion.
We just need to take a leap of faith.
I recently took a leap of faith on a new project. If you appreciate Minnesota Transplant’s philosophizing like above, you might like this new project, too. Are you the praying sort? I’m offering a service that will deliver prayers right to your In Box every morning. I’ve named it for the belfry in the church we remodeled into our home: Bell Tower Prayer. To learn more, click here: Bell Tower Prayer.
Minnesota Transplant 
Thank you, good advise to remember. I’m enjoying these.
On Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 6:58 PM Minnesota Transplant wrote:
> Monica Lee posted: ” I walk my neighborhood north of Austin quite often, > and I thought I’d found every trail there was to find. I figured out the > shortcut to the mailbox, I found the path up to the smokehouse, and I even > discovered the walkway to the former kayak drop. ” >