Strait Passage: The Journey

I recently came across, for the first time to really pay attention to them at least, the passages of Matthew 7: 13 and 14 and was excited by what I read there:

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

This is from the KJV - Note the spelling of Strait. It is not Straight. Strait is a correct translation from the Latin Vulgate, “angustam porta”, literally “narrow passage”.
The dictionary definition for Strait is thus:

1. A narrow channel joining two larger bodies of water. Often used in the plural with a singular verb.
2. A position of difficulty, perplexity, distress, or need. Often used in the plural: in desperate straits.

These two definitions, together, make up the whole of Strait in this context.
I have spoken of straits before, referencing to the John Donne poem “Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness”, and the relationships in that poem to the journey of the wanderer. What I said about it was this: “In ‘Hymn...’ Donne makes reference to several Straits (That of Magellan, Anyan, and Gibraltar). A strait represents a tight place of passage, between to large bodies of water, literally, or figuratively we can safely say it is a reference to making the journey, from one place unto another. Perhaps as Brendan [St. Brendan] journeyed from this world to another and back again.”
I am a believer in journey, in living the life of a seeker in all things. Although I consider myself spiritual, being a seeker is more than any sort of faith – even an atheist has a philosophy, and everyone has a passion. It is through our world-view that we establish the understanding of the natural order, how the world works, that is the foundation for our mores and ethics, our human relationships and even our decision-making philosophies. It is my belief that it is not just the enhanced life, but it is the true life that is the life of the wanderer. The true student, the faithful disciple, is the wanderer.
I endeavor to be a wanderer. I endeavor to question, to seek, to my satisfaction. An answer is the foundation of a question, and the question is ever faithful to the truth.

“Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, which leadeth unto life” – The strait and narrow, the hard road, is the path to life. The hard road is the path of the wanderer.
Not the Straight and Narrow as is so commonly said – What means this, straight and narrow? It says “Follow this line” (the road as defined by another), but this is a perversion of the truth: A command to unquestioningly, undeviatingly, unknowingly walk a prescribed path.
The hard road, the difficult road, is the honest road. To be honest, we must be questioned, or tested to use another word.
To be tested we must not take the beaten path, the easy path (the wide gate and broad way), but the hard road. To be questioning, to be questioned (for, are not most questions in this realm essentially of ourselves, or relating to ourselves, making us both the questioning, and the questioned?), is the way of the wanderer.

Another Dedication

I have been, since my youth, fascinated by the dedications in books and novels. My curiosity about who these people, so often named only in allusion or initial, were or are has always been strong. Now, as a writer myself my curiosity is more interested in knowing what gifts these people gave the writer, what aid or succor or drive.
My favorite, to date, dedication is still from James Clavell in his novel King Rat - "For Those Who Were, And Are Not. For Those Who Were, And Are. For Him. But Most, For Her."
Today however, I came across another one that is quite excellent. It is from Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence.

"To S.A.
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you, Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When I came.

Death seemed my servant on the road, till we were near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me
and took you apart:
Into his quietness.

Love, the way-weary, groped to your body, our brief wage
ours for the moment
Before earth's soft hand explored your shape, and the blind
worms grew fat upon
Your substance.

Men prayed me that I set our work, the inviolate house,
as a memory of you.
But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now
The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels
in the marred shadow
Of your gift."

It is probable that S.A. was the teenage native boy Lawrence had moved in with him for a time, not something one can easily identify with, but who a man loves and what he is willing to shed blood for are a mans own business and his alone I suppose - Especially this far down the line. Whoever, of whatever sex, race or creed, S.A. was they were worth everything to this man - And he saw the glory, and then the tarnish and ruin, of his works reflected in the life and hope, and then the death, of this person he cared so deeply for.
Judge it as you will - I say read the poem, its poetry, its about what its about to you. In it I see the sentiment of a warrior.

Fowl Absurdity

The following is quote from the late author Douglas Adams, or actually a quote from one of his books (The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul). I'm posting it for a friend of mine (as opposed to a friend of someone elses, I suppose), as I expect she will enjoy the fowl absurdity of it as much as I.

"It was a couple of days before Kate Schechter became aware of any of these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world.
She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabin trunks were full of vivid, and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine-tenths were full of penguins, which surprised her. Insofar as she recognised at all that she was dreaming, she realised that she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins."