SMOOTHING OUT THE BUMPS

When we paint metaphors depicting the struggles and joys of life, we often look up - to nature’s beauty and majesty. Yet, for the purpose of today’s post, I’m looking down… down at the asphalt. In the desert golf community where I live, they have just completed entirely repaving the access and egress route. Beforehand, roots wandering underground from trees that beautifully lined this roadway had caused bumps and cracks along the surface. They had been glossed over time and time again, only to resurface exactly as they were as cracks in the gloss over. The lines that separated the lanes had become blurry and unclear. And the even the reflectors, added in recent years to better define the boundaries of each lane, were in dire need of repair.

And so we find a metaphor not in nature, but in, of all things, asphalt. A perfect metaphor, really, for our day-to-day life. For we too must pave over now and then. Not gloss over, because we know the original hurts and wounds pop right back through the gloss over. Rather, we have to do the hard work of total repaving. We have to realign the boundaries and reassert their reflectors. And if we don’t do that hard work, the road is forever bumpy.

I happen to ride a bicycle every day, so for those of you in cars, imagine my added happiness at the smoothness of this roadway. I can fully appreciate, perhaps even more than you can, the ease with which this road can be traversed. So, too, can the people closest to us more fully appreciate that our new, paved, well-defined life represents an attitude and an outward approach to others which is smooth and welcoming.

Do you have a bumpy road to repair? If not repair, does your road need better boundaries to define the lanes? Perhaps better reflectors to remind us of those boundaries?

Think about it. Because life is much easier on the roadway is smooth.