the art of discernment
by
Father Larry Janowski, O.F.M.
Just take it on Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” They love it, my students—memorize the words, but miss the point about that less-traveled road, claim Frost a hero for endorsing the holy my way, though he called this poem “a tricky one, very tricky,” less about not following the crowd, or even which path, and more about just making up your mind. If he could, the poet would nod to Yogi Berra: If you come to a fork in the road, take it. In the end, there will always be those two paths: the one you choose, and the other one. Pick one—one that loves you back, and if you still seek some Yankee wisdom, try that other poem, the one about not standing and waiting too long, about miles and miles to go, about promises to keep.
Father Larry Janowski, O.F.M., a Franciscan Friar of the Province of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a poet and fiction writer. He teaches poetry at Loyola University in Chicago. 134
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