Crossing Over

There is something about crossing over, whether it be a magnificently built bridge, a natural stone path over a creek, a Red Sea, a rope bridge over a canyon or a small row boat filled with two boys out adventuring. The symbolic and the physical moving over to a place that we can’t reach without some type of help.

And while often times it’s just to get to the other side, sometimes it’s escaping the past, getting to safety on another shore, exploring a new land or even just the need to find something new in our lives.

Crossing over matters. It’s biblical, it’s philosophical, it’s damn well part of Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Hero’s Journey’. Why do I always come back to that? Because it’s life. We do have a journey. We do have this Hero inside us - and I’m not talking about Hercules or Captain America or Spider-Man like I watched with my son this last weekend. But there is a hero inside us that has to go on a journey. Otherwise we get stuck in the mud.

And the journey, it may be crossing over the river Styx, it may be to go rescue some damsel in distress, or a guy in distress - let’s be real, a lot of women are a lot stronger than some of us men! It could be to start a new life. It could be simply walking through the sadness and the hurts that still prick at times.

Regardless, we have a journey. What do you need to cross over today? What are you working towards? Is it a long drawbridge that you have to time it just right to get over, is it the rope bridge from Indiana Jones that you know the enemy is going cut as soon as they can while you’re on top of it, or is it a little dinghy that you are frantically rowing to get across to freedom… to breath, to life?

I don’t know your journey, but I hope you’re on it. I hope your feet are planted firmly in the knowledge that you can do this. That even when it gets hard, you can do this. There’s help. There’s a village around you if you want it. There’s people who do care in this world. There’s hope. It may be in your faith, it may be in a social structure, a wise teaching - but there is hope. I have to believe that. Otherwise, why are we here? Why are we here?

I hope you take that next step.

And cross over that bridge.

~ Peace

The Burtle