Recalculating

And thou shalt not go alone, neither shalt thou find the way by thine own knowing; but thine ears shall hear a word, saying, This is the way, walk thou in it, when thou turnest to the right hand, and when thou turnest to the left.

For the voice goeth before thee upon the road, and knoweth the turning that is hidden from thee, and the way that is far off. And it saith, In four hundred yards, turn. And again, Keep thou to the left. And it counteth down thy coming to the place, yard upon yard, and setteth thy going in order; and thou hast only to hearken, and to keep thine eyes upon the road, and it will bring thee unto the door.

But behold, thou strayest. For thou heardest the word, and heededst it not; or thou sawest the turning too late, and wentest on past it; or thou saidst in thine heart, I know a nearer way than the voice, and tookest the road that seemed right unto thee. And thou art gone off the way. And the place thou seekest is behind thee now, and thou art come into streets thou knowest not, and the night is upon them.

Now hear what the voice doeth in that hour. It crieth not out against thee. It saith not, Thou fool, wherefore didst thou not hearken? It layeth not thy straying to thy charge, neither casteth it up unto thee, nor holdeth thy folly in remembrance against another day. There is a small silence only. And then the one word: Recalculating.

And in that word the whole way is made new. For it carrieth thee not back to the turning thou didst miss, neither requireth thee to undo thy wandering, nor to return empty unto the place where thou wentest wrong; but from the very street whereunto thou hast strayed, far off as it is, it draweth a new way home, and setteth it plain before thee, and saith again, gently, as though thou hadst never left it, This is the way, walk thou in it.

And though thou stray seventy times seven; though thou miss every turning it appointeth thee, and take every road it warned thee from, and go astray until thou art come to the very edge of the map — so oft as thou turnest aside, so oft doth the voice recalculate, and make thee a road from where thou art, and never is there a wandering gone so far that it hath not, from that place, a way back.

For it is not thy perfect keeping of the road that bringeth thee home, but the voice that will not cease to reroute thee. There is no wrath in it. There is only the way — ever the way — drawn new from wherever thou hast got to, patient past all thy straying, unto the very door.

It may be so. It may not.