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For inspirational t-shirts and gifts all featuring my own original sayings inside a classic Zen and So circle. Today's reading was edited and adapted from Working with God by Gardner hunting published in 1934. Did you ever start out on a road trip of a hundred miles away? or more from a height which gave you a view of the whole road you had to travel from beginning to end. It would be Be a high mountain indeed that would give you such a view. There are doubtless places in the Rockies from which we can see the country for long distances, sometimes perhaps for fifty miles, maybe much more.

So clear that distant things seem much closer than they actually are. Sometimes we can actually see the road itself, its twists and turns, its straight Stretches, its climbs and descents, its bridges. Towns along the way, even the detours, so far ahead that we can anticipate nearly all the conditions we shall have to meet on the way to where we plan to go. But you... Usually the road ahead of us is not so clear. Usually we get out a road map and study it.

And lay out our route by what somebody else, the map maker, tells us is the most practical, the most direct, the easiest way. Then we get reports from some website as to the condition of roads, shortcuts, points of interest, places to find food and shelter, the safe comfortable Highways to follow, all based on first-hand experience in driving over the route we intend to follow. Then we watch this signs along the way. 12 miles to Pleasantville. Turn right for Deer Valley.

This way to Bear Mountain Slow, sharp turn Steep hill, go into second gear Cross road, toll bridge ahead Drive carefully please, thank you. Road signs put up by those who came this way before we did, and who made it their business or thought it a privilege to make the road safe and easy and pleasant for us. All of it was created for our guidance. All we have to do is read them and follow the instructions quietly, easily, and naturally. And we get along fine. But what do we do about guidance on a long long road? Very little of which can commonly see from any height. The road we call life. Do we get a road map? Ask people who know from experience? Why?

Watch and obey the signs along the way. Some of us do strange things. Some of us spend hours, weeks... Years turning over road maps to life, skeptical of their dependability. Some of us distrust everybody who tells us their experience. Some of us don't believe in signs. Some of us pull up beside the road and stop and wait. And guess and worry. We seem to think that some good angel is going to come along and take us in tow, or do our driving for us. Some of us just throw away all available information, release our brakes, step on the gas. And go roaring along reckless of curves and hills, traffic and crossroads, men at work and all the rest.

As if luck were the rule of the road, as if we had a heaven-given right to think that some special dispensation of providence might guard us. From danger and carry us through. Then when things happen that we do not like, when accidents occur, or when nothing happens at all... For in the surmountable obstacles oppose us, we grow sour or bitter, furious or despairing, or simply resign, and resent the fact that we are all dead. That we have to travel the road at all and abuse fate, fortune, or God. We believe in, for allowing us to suffer, for requiring anything of us. Were putting us here in the first place. Some of us do still stranger things.

I know one man, a self-styled guru, who spends his time telling other people how to travel the road, but who neglects his family, dodges obviously. Borrows money without any idea of paying it back, changes his plans every few weeks, yet sets himself up for a better life. As an authority on life and living. I know a woman who always picks out the hardest thing she can find to do and tries to do that. Who is a martyr at every opportunity, who looks upon life as a veil of tears, who seems Seems to think that getting to heaven is mostly a matter of dodging hell, and who considers Privileged to meddle in other people's affairs, as if she had been divinely appointed to set them right by mixing them up.

Another woman who professes to be searching for truth, but who always puts up an argument against every idea that is presented to her. And a man who has an ambition to achieve great things along a certain line of work, but who Always waiting for more favorable circumstances. For better ideas. For more inspiration and who devotes most of his time and effort to other things. I know college students who professed... Believe that everything in the way of maps, directions, and signs is all bunk.

They go along indulging in wild parties and getting over the after effects, and sneering or making wise cracks about everything that has even a flavor of seriousness about it. They cynically assert that life is a mess, a chaos, a joke, a mystery, a meaningless experience, a mechanical torture device, a game of chance, a grab bag. But let's use a little common sense. Isn't life a road that we should look upon exactly like any other road we have to travel? In the first place. All of us want to go places and do things, don't we? All right then. That means activity on our own part.

If we don't want other people to get all our rewards and have all our fun, we have to get off our butts. If we sit down idly, twiddle our thumbs, and and wait. Some fruit may fall into our lap, but not much. It requires activity, effort on our part, just to enjoy eating, dancing, playing baseball, hockey, ping pong or bridge. I have to do something just to be well dressed or clean. I have to climb into Bed just to sleep. Agreed? Well the place I really want to go is the City of Happiness. The great map maker is...

Says that the only road leading there is service and the signposts along the road are one love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy Strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself. And 4. Give and it shall be given unto you. In case any of us might be...

Shall guide into you all the truth. In other words, the Spirit is the encounter. Interpreter of my map and my instructions. Very well. The name God means good. That means I am to love the good with all there is in me. I am to treat my neighbors as I want them to treat me. me. Only giving them a square deal, but being as helpful to them as I can be, always. I am to act kindly toward them, speak kindly of them, and think kindly about them, exactly as I want them to do toward me. Then I am to ask, seek, and knock actively in search of the things that are my heart's desires. I am to give out what I want to get back. And when in doubt, I am to consult this spirit of truth.

Who travels along with me in my heart. These are plain instructions, surely. The only thing that ever confuses me is how to consult the spirit of truth. The process that is called, quote, going into the science of truth is a mystery to many of us but it need not be if we just realize that It means not merely relaxing the body and calming the mind, though both are preparations for hearing the still small voice of spirit. It means simply getting honest with ourselves. It means shutting out of the closet of your heart all the voices of self-deception, expediency, trickery, pretense and splurge. And letting the voice of the Spirit tell you what really is good, what really is right, what really is kind.

What really is giving? It means disregarding outside considerations of reward or punishment and just trying genuinely to see what truth is with the purpose of doing the thing that is right and trusting God for the results. It means submitting a definite problem to the Spirit for its solution not offering an argument. It is quite true that sometimes the spirit, wise traveling companion that it is, will just smile at you and say, Look at your map!

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