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Since the time I was young, I have always liked having a map out while traveling. I like to know where we’re going. This also made me a rather good Boy Scout. On one of my scout backpacking trips we happened to have along with us a dog belonging to one of the other leaders. His name was Winston and he had his own backpack and carried his dog dish, food, and even water. As I took pains to navigate and know exactly where we were, I noted that Winston had no idea how much further we had left to hike. He was really struggling just like the rest of us, but he had no idea if we were almost there or if this is what every day of the rest of his life was going to be like.
In the spiritual life, we often like to know where God is taking us. But I wonder if we couldn’t learn a lesson from Winston. We don’t always have to know exactly where things are going. We could just try to be holy right now, today. I like musical theater and note that many musicals have some sort of riff on this idea of living for today. The musical “Rent” had two recent showings in Kansas City and I note that the entire show ends with the company emphasizing the phrase “No Day But Today!” Many of the main character have AIDS and don’t know how many days they have left. They don’t have the luxury of waiting to get going on the things that matter.
I think this is one reason why God doesn’t tell us how long our lives will be. If we thought we were about done, we might just decide to relax and coast into the finish. Think of Abraham in our first reading. God called him when he was probably 75 years old. In earthly terms, he probably could have thought that he had followed God and accomplished what his life was meant to. Little did he know that he hadn’t even really started the biggest thing God was going to have him do.
It’s good to try to discern where God is leading. It’s even good to want to try to make sense of life with some big mile markers. This happened for the apostles on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration in today’s Gospel. But we can’t be like St. Peter and decide to just make camp and stay on the mountain thinking that we’ve arrived. There will be many peaks and valleys in life and we probably won’t be able to make sense of the whole plan of God until the very end. In the mean time, maybe we can be more like Winston and just do the next best thing right in front of us without worrying about the future, or the past. No day but today!