Guardrails

Thoughts about staying between guardrails.  Heard the term many times applied to putting "guardrails" in place in your life.  The implication is to stay within the boundaries by using some physical device, devices of our strength, try harder, more discipline.  Perhaps there is even a better way.

I think about C.S. Lewis's book The Horse and His Boy in the Chronicle of Narnia series.  When Shasta is crossing in the fog over the mountains, Aslan puts himself between Shasta and the cliff, the unseen hazard.  Aslan always putting himself between the edge and Shasta.  Shasta never aware of the danger in the blinding fog.  After Shasta makes it down the mountain, then awareness of the hazard that he just traversed and the protection that was provided without a "guardrail."

That is a different type of guardrail! It's not a guardrail.  It is a person, a relationship that guides and directs, not follow this checklist, or do this.  Just a conversation that keeps forward movement, maintaining relationship and movement.

           Guardrails

Physical barriers,
Keeps on road,
More than this to life,
Not about rules and lists.

Move beyond the reflectors at the side of the road,
Attunement to voice of Spirit within,
Accepting internal guidance,
Path to deeper intimacy.

Shifts in relating,
No longer settle barriers,
Defined by connection,
Trust and freedom from within.

About the Author:  Brian Bucks lives on a small horse ranch in Western Nebraska and is a husband, father, electrical engineer, and poet.