A month ago we were on our way home from our summer work trip to Colcord, WV.
Heather. Myself. Kathy DiBiasi. Five other adults. 22 high school students.
We had replaced a floor in trailer which seemed to have more holes than solid surface. We had built a handicap ramp for an older gentlemen so he could, more easily, get in and out of his house and a porch so a woman who had heart issues had a place to sit  besides her living room. And, we had installed a railing around a porch so it would be safe for a family’s 3 year old granddaughter. And, we talked about what we were doing and why we were doing it, and about this quote by Jane Goodall, the British anthropologist who is the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees.
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Some parts of the conversation we had were easy.
When you were replacing a floor or building a handicap ramp, the impact you were having was easy to see both in terms of what had been built and in the faces of the families with whom we were working. The conversation became a bit more challenging when we talked about the deciding part of the quote. As in each day you have to decide… When all of us were there and working and doing what we could to make someone’s home a bit safer or more livable, the decisions seemed easy. They become more complicated, don’t they, when you are on your own or at home or at school or reading and responding to the headlines in the news.

Then, on the last night we were in Colcord, came the most challenging part of our weeklong conversation.
How do you make the decisions you do?
What guides you?
What shapes you?
What are the values behind the decisions you make?
What you want?
What you think you need?
What you can afford?
What feels right in that moment?
Or, something else?
Something more?

As we were asking the high school students to think about this, I remembered and  told this story. A number of years ago a group of people in the church decided it would be fun to host a square dance. An intergenerational event which would include the youngest to the oldest. And so, a date was set. We rented the gym at the elementary school around the corner. We hired a person to be our caller for the evening. There were maybe 50 or so of us there. We dosey doed. We swung our partners. We even learned to the Grand March right and left. As the evening was drawing to a close, the caller suggested we try a line dance. For me, this is when the evening became complicated. I knew how to dosey do and I knew how to swing my partner, but when it comes to other kinds of dancing I feel like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz. So, as we took our places for the line dance I strategically made my way to  the back of the room. My reasoning was that if I was in the last row no one would see how awkward I was and I would be able to watch and to follow all the other people in front of me.

And, so we started.
The line dance we learned went something like this.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Quarter turn.
Are you beginning to see where this is heading?
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Quarter turn.
Suddenly, I was in the front row.
And, the moment I was…
The moment I could not watch the leader and what others were doing>>>
I lost my way.

There is this story in Matthew’s Gospel about Jesus.
Jesus had spent the entire day surrounded by the crowds of people who had come out from the nearby villages to see him and to listen to him and to be touched by him. At the end of the day he was exhausted. As he was sending the crowds home, he told his disciples to get in the boat and start for the other side and he would catch up with them later. That evening, as they were part way across the lake in their boat, the disciples looked up and saw what looked like Jesus walking across the water towards them. They were some combination of scared to death and wondering if they were dreaming. Peter, called out saying, “Jesus if it is really you tell me to get out of the boat and walk across the water to you.” Jesus said, “Come.” So, Peter stepped out of the boat and began to walk across the water towards Jesus. Then, the Bible says, Peter began to look around and saw the wind and the waves and in that moment he began to sink.

Looking around at our lives and world, there is certainly a lot of wind and waves to distract our attention, isn’t there.

Let me leave you with this.
This quote from the iconic New York Yankee, Yogi Berra.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up someplace else.”