Forked Paths and Forked Tongues

Every path has forks in it. No paths lead straight from point A to point B. That’s not how our roads work, that’s not how our trails work, that’s not how our stories work, that’s not how our lives work. Going straight from one place to another may be the most effective way to get there, but that’s not what any of these things are about. It’s a cliché in some ways, but sayings become cliché for a reason: they’re true. So I’ll go ahead and say it: the journey is often more important than the destination.

Take it on the broadest level possible, for example. All humans begin our journeys on this earth at the same point A – we are born. We end at the same point B – we die. But no one would say that the best way to live this life is to get from A to B as quickly as possible; no, we mourn it as a tragedy when a journey is cut short, when someone takes a shortcut from A to B by their own choice, the choice of another, or an accident beyond human control.

Our lives aren’t about getting from birth to death as fast as possible. It’s all about what happens on the way.

Even within that, there are so many options, so many forks in the road before you reach the end. Stay in school or leave it? Move or stay in the same place? Marry or stay single? Quit one job for another or remain? Retire or continue to work? And with all of these decisions come endless details: where? When? Why? Who? How? Each is a smaller and smaller fork in the road, some rejoining earlier paths and some leading down roads you’ve never dreamt of.

It’s most difficult when the paths are equal. None of the choices I gave, in and of themselves and without context, are bad decisions. In most situations, it’s easy to find benefits and drawbacks to whichever choice you may make. It’s not a choice between a pleasant walk in the meadow and dark forests with dangerous creatures lurking, it’s between two tree-lined avenues which both have light and shade. Either could lead into the valley of the shadow of death; either could lead into beauty beyond our wildest dreams.

Fictional characters – and their authors – face these choices as well. Our characters face mundane choices that may have little bearing on their stories, or may change their entire course; they struggle with major decisions that could revolutionize their lives, or could have little impact at all. And we can all take a lesson from how authors are advised to deal with these decisions.

Our characters don’t live in a bubble of isolation (none I’m aware of, anyway), and neither do we. They seek out opinions and advice from people they trust, and so should we. These opinions may differ, and differ vastly, as we may find in our own lives. The ones we believe, or our characters believe, depend on the truths and lies that we already believe. We, or our characters, are in between two groups of people: wise mentors who encourage the truths we must accept, and the opponents who encourage the lies we believe.

These opponents are rarely true enemies, although they may seem that way. If we trust them enough to ask for advice, then they must on some level want what’s best for us, and they genuinely believe we need to hear what they have to say. Yet these well-meant words, if they are false, are only echoing hisses of our adversary, sliding off a forked tongue and worming their way into our minds. They tempt us towards the wrong fork in the road, promising peace or adventure, safety, security, adrenaline, compliance, rebellion, ease, difficulty – whatever we may be drawn to most. Even our most trusted mentors are imperfect people, and even they may become messengers with forked tongues in their efforts to provide what they think we need.

Without hope in Someone above ourselves, without hope in a knowledge surpassing our own, we are left alone with overwhelming voices trying to drown each other out, hands tugging us towards different forks until our arms are nearly ripped from our shoulders, decisions and details pounding at our minds with no clear sense of which way is right. We end up settling for arbitrary, playing eenie-meenie-miney-mo or spinning and pointing at a path and hoping for the best. Is this any way to live, forever unsure of our decisions, always wondering what would have happened with eenie instead of mo, left instead of right?

We need Someone higher to direct our decisions, or we’ll forever be wondering if we’re going astray. With characters, it’s the author directing the choices, writing the circumstances and the friends the character will trust and the messages the character will receive into the story and weaving it together into a story the character could never have dreamt of by themselves. For humans, we have to recognize that we are characters in the greatest story ever written, threads in the hands of a master Weaver, clay in the hands of an expert Potter.

Our choices are laid before us, good and bad, better and best, affecting our lives and the lives around us, weaving together in His hands. He has a good and perfect plan for each of us, chapters in His redemptive story, threads in His woven masterpiece. And if we stand at the crossroads long enough, if we walk with Him along the paths He’s laid out and ask Him for direction at every fork in the road, He will give it. He is not a cruel Author, toying with His characters, forcing them to make decisions on their own. He takes us gently by the hand and leads us towards the path He has for us.

And if we’re listening, the shouting voices will fade out until a still, small voice is left. The pulling hands will drop away until only His remains. The forked tongues will be silenced, the lies we have reinforced will be exposed, the truths revealed.

And then – then we may take those steps, following our Teacher and the teachers He has given us, trusting that He leads us not into the depths of the grave, but into everlasting life.

Yes, trusting. Because in the end, that’s all He asks us to do.