Tie Your Laces

While taking a walk, my laces are undone and I have to pause to tie them. Again.

I find this inconvenient because it halts the flow of my walk and pauses the dance I started with the road. My safety is obviously more important than the inconvenience, so I pause to tie my laces. I have to tie them; otherwise I might trip, fall and hurt myself. I have to tie them because it is hard to walk steadily when your laces are loose.

After tying my laces, I got up to continue walking. I had to let in a new flow and turn into a slightly more different rhythm with the road. I was still far into my walk though – tying my laces didn’t take my effort and experience away. It didn’t erase the ground that I already covered – I was gently reminded of this when I quickly looked back and still saw it. When I turned to look ahead, I saw that I was also still closer to my set destination. I didn’t lose anything except a bit of time, but I would have probably lost more time if I tripped and fell, and my walk would have been interrupted if I left my laces loose. More than anything, I allowed myself to be safe in my walk, and I made it possible for me to complete it. I offered myself some grace.

Shortly into the continuation of my walk, I start to settle into the new flow and find my breath’s newer pace. Before I know it, I am grounded in my walk once more and eventually make it home.

When I paused to tie my laces at the corner of that intersection, the walk asked me to slightly change. It brought down my breath, changed it, and led me into a new rhythm. The walk asked for a different part of me; I could no longer be in the state that I was in when I left home. As I tied my laces to continue with my walk, breathing a bit differently, I was being the very thing that God is.

I was being the God that protects me. I was being the God that prepares me. I was being the God that looks after me. I was being the God that wants me to arrive to my destination safely.

My laces were undone because I dared to walk. Because I accepted living.

We are undone because we are living.

Whenever God manifests as a pause in you, give a different part of you the chance to arise and walk. It may or may not be a better part of you – that doesn’t matter, you don’t have to measure the different parts of you or put them in competition, all of it is still you. What matters is that you offer the road what it asks for from you – sometimes the road asks you to bow down.

For wherever it is that you are to arrive, let it be all that you are that arises and walks with you there.

Stop at the intersection,

bow down,

and tie your laces.

Goba. Zithobe. Zifase.

Bese ungaqhubeka ngohambo lwakho kahle.