By Father Timothy Gollob
Special to The Texas Catholic
Every day there are connections in our lives with the illnesses, with the deaths, with the triumphs of other people. These folks might be our family or our neighbors or just some strangers with whom we happen to share a few moments of time or a little bit of space.
Now I think that whatever happens, happens for a reason. We make choices and out of these many decisions in our lives, everything evolves. These choices can be as trivial as taking a side road rather than an expressway. But they might be as important as the choice of a spouse or of a college or of a vocation.
No matter what may come of our decision, we are stuck with all the consequences. The side road might be closed by a pothole. The expressway might be clogged by a collision.
Our spouse might become chronically ill or they might be elected president of the firm.
Recently, I decided to go to the Trinity Audubon Center to look for whatever species of birds that might be there at the beginning of the new season of autumn. I saw and listed the usual suspects. Then I walked on down the path to the footbridge crossing the Trinity River. Looking up, I spied a Peregrine Falcon high in the air. It was soaring for a full minute as it headed south and then it was gone.
It turned out to be a good bird for my Dallas County list. If I hadn’t gone out that evening, it would have passed unnoticed. If I had not looked up from the bridge, it would not have inspired this column. If I had not had the blessing of being a disciple of Professor Warren M. Pulich Sr., I would not have been out in the fall air watching for new and unusual birds.
If you had not read your Texas Catholic newspaper today, you would not have gone to “Google” to ask: “just what on God’s green earth is a Peregrine Falcon?”
Robert Frost wrote a poem about this phenomenon,“The Road Not Taken.” He says he saw two roads in a yellow wood. He had to make a decision to go down one of them and leave the other to an uncertain future date which he doubted would ever occur. He ends the poem:
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
Father Timothy Gollob is the pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff.
