"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." -Winston Churchill

Well, I think this quote explains what I was thinking about yesterday. I don't see life as a marathon, where we reach the end only to say to ourselves, "What now?" after we finish the race. Instead of everything leading up to that one big moment where you push yourself further than your body wants to go, I think that life is like an infinite mountain. I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but I feel like on our journey that we call life, our choices help us move our way up the foothills and, eventually, the mountain that looms before us. Every day, we travel the course we choose, either through the brambles or the woods, to get that much closer to the top. We have those moments of clarity, when we reach the top of the next foothill or a clearing that allows us to see how far we've come (or how far we still have to go), but most of the time, we are caught up in what is directly ahead of us and what we are dealing with in that particular moment. There are moments when we don't think our efforts are getting us anywhere. And then there are those moments when we realize we've been going in circles or even been moving down the mountain in our disoriented state. Sometimes we forget to climb a tree and evaluate how far we've come. If we did, we might realize more often that we are moving in a path that we couldn't have predicted, but is getting us where we need to be. 

Winston Churchill is completely right when he says that the journey should provide joy and glory for you. I can't help but think of this quote in the terms of my own faith. I think it really explains how our journey never ends. Even after this life, we'll continue to learn and climb. We are facing an infinite mountain, in which the joy doesn't result from reaching the top, but comes instead from the climb itself. The work involved in progressing up our own personal mountain is where we get our joy and glory, not from being the first one to reach the top.

Well, I don't know if any of this is even making sense. However, I kept thinking of the movie trailer for the new Jack and the Bean Stalk movie. I think it's called "Jack the Giant Killer," and here's the trailer:

Now, I'm not saying life is a bean stalk or anything, I just think that movie looks good. Plus, Ewan McGregor's in it. With really awesome hair.

And here's a lovely song I've been listening to today:

Enjoy! And I'll be back tomorrow with more Sir Winston!