Life’s Tour Guides

A good tour guide helps you see what you are see­ing. Life’s tour guides start early — mostly par­ents and older sib­lings. You are told how to see the world and life itself. You have a string of for­mal teach­ers from age five to the end of this life. Pro­fes­sors, men­tors, friends, insti­tu­tions, polit­i­cal par­ties, media, and many more — all act as guides. They have some sort of vested inter­est in telling you what they think you are see­ing. “Spin” begins before you can utter your first word and con­tin­ues until you are unable to speak your last.

I took a tour of Oxford, Eng­land a num­ber of years ago. The tour guide had attended Cam­bridge (quite a joke if you under­stand the rivalry of those two schools). The guide was able to poke some fun at Oxford from another point of view. He loved Oxford, but you could tell his heart was in Cam­bridge. A tour is only as good as the guide — which is how I view life itself. Whether or not you are happy has to do with how you see what you see.

Like many oth­ers, I have had a life of var­i­ous health prob­lems. The med­ical estab­lish­ment has given me some painful tours of my body. I went to nurs­ing school for three years as another painful tour of the med­ical view of the human body. My coun­sel­ing teach­ers took me on some amaz­ing tours of the mind. I found those to be the most fun. Add nov­el­ists and movie-makers to that list. They have taken me to worlds unknown — good guides all.

Pain and all, I have enjoyed my tour of this planet. There are many things yet to see; I am always look­ing for another trip. As far as spir­i­tual guides, I keep going back to Jesus. He seems to have quite an amaz­ing view of the whole dynamic. Get­ting a view now and then of the world through his eyes — if even just for a moment — is a mixed expe­ri­ence. There is a love for peo­ple and a gusto for life bal­anced with the sor­rows of what so many peo­ple have done to each other. Some­times you learn as much look­ing at the junk yard as you do the city. Pain is part of the tour.

As a coun­selor, min­is­ter, sib­ling, philoso­pher, teacher, and friend, I have been a guide for oth­ers. I hope peo­ple have appre­ci­ated my part of the tour. Like a good tour guide, I brush up on the infor­ma­tion and try out other per­spec­tives. All in all, I am really enjoy­ing Life-Land and am look­ing for­ward to an expanded tour of a greater place yet to come. I hope you are enjoy­ing your tour as much as I am.