What Are The Tracks We Leave Behind?

Toro Toro Once Again

One of the highlights of our Bolivia trip was visiting the national park called Toro Toro and seeing the stunning dinosaur tracks left over from the Mesozoic era. It was awe inspiring to see the footprints of these roaming beasts (dating between 252 to 66 million years ago). Equally satisfying after viewing them we had the opportunity to reflect upon our own journey as fellow creatures travelling under God’s sun.

What kind of tracks are we leaving behind during our sojourn open planet earth?” Such imprints may be physical or metaphorical but they are impressions just the same. Has our journey upon Mother Earth been a time to help others or injure them? Have we worked for the well-being of the human community or have we narcissistically focused upon our own needs and desires?

As I considered these thoughts my mind flashed back to spiritual sages from earlier days. First, I mused upon St. John of the Cross and his cogent adage for the human journey:

When the evening of this life comes we shall be judged on love.

Second, I pondered the words of Evelyn Underhill who expanded upon his maxim:

When the evening of this life comes you will be judged on love. The only question asked about the soul’s use of its house and the gifts that were made to it will be: ‘Have you loved well? All else will be resumed in this; all thoughts, beliefs, desires, struggles and achievements, all complex activities . . . For Faith is nothing unless it be the obscure vision of a loved Reality; and Hope is nothing unless it be the confidence of perfect love.

And last (but certainly not the least) the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement Dorothy Day who penned the following stirring words:

To love with understanding, and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is lovable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues, rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!

It seems to me that the summary of this esteemed collective falls along the line: Can we make the prime goal of our human existence be “to love God and our neighbours as ourselves” (even as Jesus opined centuries ago)? Can we get up each day with the determination to love others with a fierce and passionate kindness for the glory of God?

If we do so we can be sure that the foot tracks we leave behind will transcend (and outlast) the dinosaurs’ mud prints of Toro Toro. Indeed, our loving actions will be an offering of eternal value to our Creator God. Additionally, our deeds of mercy will flow outwards to everyone made in His/Her Image. And to all life that we are called to fervently shepherd as priests of God.