(Click the player above to listen to this 6:00 episode.)
You can listen by clicking the play button here, and also in your favorite podcast app—Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.
Please note—what follows is a transcription of this podcast episode. It may contain errors and it in no way can capture the nuances and emotions of the spoken word. We share it with you for those who prefer to read, or want to read along as the listen to the episode.
Welcome back to the Living Cup of Spirituality on one podcast. I'm so glad you're with me again. My name is Scott Stoner. I'm the founder of this initiative. And on this podcast you can learn about a living cover story that comes out of my background as a for decades as a marriage and family therapist and also as an ordained clergy person of progressive person of faith and spirituality has been my compass. It's the name Living Compass. As I navigate this journey of wholeness and wellness.
I'm going to be talking today about one of my favorite quotes in the sense this quote is kind of a compass. It's been a compass for me the last couple of years. It's by a Spanish poet by the name of Antonio Machado. And here's a quote. Traveler, There is no path. The path is made by a walking traveler. We're all travelers on this journey we call life. And you know what? There is no path. We make the path by walking. You know, there's a Buddhist saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will arise. And maybe for me, it's when the student is ready. It is, quote unquote, will arise. Are you like that at all? Do you have like a quote or maybe a Bible verse or another spiritual tradition, a scripture or a sacred or maybe a poem or a song, You know, something? It just kind of finds its way into your heart, into your soul and your mind. And you referred to it me because I've walked to the Camino paths in Spain over the last year. I don't know if that's when I first got introduced to this, but I just love this quote.
Now, some I think it's a little can be a little anxiety producing new traveler. There is no path. What? There's no path. But I'm looking for the path. Well, the idea here is that the path is made by walking. If you're like me, I know sometimes I get paralyzed because I want to know the exact path. I remember when I was first starting into podcasting a couple of years ago, the first podcast I did was in Still Goes On. We're starting it up again for season three, the Wellness Campus podcast. It's our health and wellness podcast. It's more of a secular, but I guess my wife and I do that. But I never obsessing about do I have the right equipment, do I have the right software, do I the right microphone? Do I had the right knowledge to edit and the sound engineering of a podcast? And what about my RSS feed and how do I get in an Apple podcast? And I didn't know the path was on the right path. And I finally I mean, obviously I did some research, I got some input, and I actually hired a coach to help me figure some of this stuff out. And then I started walking and we started walking. Holly and I, my wife and I, we’re still walking and we're still making this up as we go. I'm still learning how to do podcasting and I learn by walking on the path of I made mistakes, have I made wrong turns and I can just some dead ends? Absolutely. But we make the path we're walking. But because this is a podcast about spirituality and and wellness, our our, our spirituality doesn't give us a clear path. What it gives us is a clear compass, hence the name Living Compass. Again, it gives us a clear path, a clear direction. So if I'm out in the wilderness and I know where I have a compass and I know I want to go north, I have my true North America and I know where North is in my compass. It doesn't provide the path. In fact, I may look and may look. I do North and and there may be a big ledge, you know, Rock ledge or a waterfall straight ahead of me where I'm not going to just walk due north because my compass says that's where I want to go is north. That path is not going to work. I may have to go east or west.
I might even have to go south for a while and backtrack, go downhill, or find a place to to get across the river or whatever, you know, find a way to navigate. But I know my direction, and that's what I think our faith or spirituality does for us, whether we're going through a time of loss or a time of grief, whether we're facing a hard decision, maybe a health decision, or we're fighting a hard decision, a relationship, maybe there's a difficult conversation we need to have. My faith will guide me. My spirituality will guide me. It will guide me to be loving. It will guide me to speak the truth and love. It will guide me to act with compassion and kindness, to treat me as a person with equal respect. Everyone is equal in my eyes, the eyes of my face. If I'm walking through loss, I will be reminded and comforted by the Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I am not alone. It will give me a direction, but it won't give me an obvious path. Heidi, I Our faith doesn't make that promise. Her spirituality doesn't give us the the exact path, but it reminds us that we're not alone on the path and we can reach out to others and turn to our faith and her spirituality for guidance.
And it gives us the courage then to to also it gives us the courage to try and make mistakes. If you think from a Christian point of view, I think some of the all the stories of the very human people, the disciples or other people in the Old Testament who were trying to follow God and and, you know, make God their compass and Victor Compass. And they wandered all over the place and they were constantly going in the wrong direction. So this is the freedom to to start over to, you know, to to recalculating routes is or is are GPS software does. And so I hope this quote might be helpful for you. As I you know, I've been navigating a lot of changes in my life recently and it's just been comforting to know that just keep walking.
And if you start in a certain direction and you hit a dead end, then turn around and recalculating route and use your your, your spirituality as your compass. So traveler, there is no path. We make the path we're walking, but we make this path we're walking together. We're all part of this journey of wholeness and oneness. And I'm glad to walk it with you. You can reach out to me at Living Service dot org. My emails got a living cover story like our Facebook page. We post the episodes there and if you want to share any of your responses to this quote or maybe a quote that you love, I love to bring quotes into the episodes. So again, it's wonderful to be on this path. Puts you in until we gather again in this format. May you be healthy, may you be happy, maybe be clear about your compass and your spirituality as a guide you to to try the path to try paths, even when the path is now clear, and that it will give you the confidence and the courage to make the path by walking.