Go. G-o. It is one of the first words we might have learned to read or write. Simple, short. Knowing how to sound the hard ‘g’ and round our lips into a perfect ‘o’ we may have begun our long and often confusing and rewarding journey with language, with communication in all its ever-evolving forms. But it may all have begun with two letters and a command. Go!
Today’s word on the Lenten journey is ‘go’. For some reason when I saw the challenge of it staring me in the face I began to think of books. I remembered the early reader we spent time hunched over with our two sons: Go, Dog, Go! The enthusiasm and silliness in this memory of this ‘go’ inspired book made me feel warm all over. And then there is the recent book of Harper Lee’s: Go, Set a Watchman. Regardless of how readers felt about this follow up story to To Kill a Mockingbird, it did send many rushing to the Book of Isaiah to look in the 21st chapter for the title’s reference. Seems Lee was calling out for someone to be a moral compass in the story, something the writer of Isaiah says every community needs. With the way our world is moving these days, I tend to agree. Of course the question is always…whose moral compass will we follow when the voice cries ‘Go!’

My mind also when to the opposite side of the equation and thought of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ poem ‘ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.’ This poem which uses the images of light and darkness to symbolize life and death was written for his father and seems to give credence to an obituary I once read. It described the deceased as ‘going kicking and screaming into the great beyond.’ The truth and honesty of these words startled me while also making me chuckle. Do NOT go gentle when death comes to call but instead ‘rage, rage against the coming of the dark.’, says Thomas. 

There are signals that tell us to go…..green. And those that tell us to wait, to not go…red. Yellow for the limbo of in-between. There are people and situations to which we want to enthusiastically answer the call to ‘Go!’ There are also those who create unrest and fear in us, situations which stir up a deep wisdom that tells us to stay put.

Where are the places in your life that are ‘go’ places these days? What inner voice is urging you forward? Where are the places that are filled with caution and the desire to wait, rest, see what might happen before moving? Paying attention to both can be a full time job, can’t it?

Often at the end of our worship services something like these words written by Harold Babcock are said: 

And now may we go forth

in the certainty of faith,

in the knowledge of love,

and in the vision of hope.

And in our going, may we be blessed

with all good things on this day

and forevermore. Amen.

Seems to me like a good enough way to reflect on the word ‘go’ to me. And a fair benediction for any day.