A recent stroll through my labyrinth revealed this:

Somehow, the silver maple dropped a branch and it landed upright, stuck in the mud. We had several days of hard rain, and the combination of that rain, a pretty heavy branch, and gravity resulted in my day’s object lesson.

Circuit after circuit on the labyrinth, I saw that stick. I remembered a poem by Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the mustn’ts, child.
Listen to the don’ts.
Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me…
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

In chaplaincy, we sometimes talk about “re-framing” an event or situation. We provide the opportunity to see things from a new perspective. Not in a “Pollyanna” sort of way, but with the intent to free up what “has always been” to what it “could be.”

It’s not easy.

I neither want to minimize fears and legitimate concerns, not suggest that something is “wrong” with an individual’s thinking. But I also want to educate, to promote “possibilities” that might not have been considered.

“I wonder if you’ve ever watched someone else deal with this…” I might begin… “I wonder if you’ve thought of this diagnosis having a different outcome.”

“I wonder if…”

What I want to give up on completely, God has a way of invoking possibilities. I just have to take the time to see them