Keep Moving Forward

While this is a basic command of marching, this could well be a basic mindset of life: To forge ahead, to move onward, to advance with big – and often, not so big – strides.

We have to master the art, and I would add, the discipline of always moving forward in life.

There will always be “speed bumps” in the road of life – the COVID 19 pandemic is clearly one colossal speed bump! – which we may often trip over. Borrowing a Spanish phrase, we can tell ourselves and each other whenever it happens “No pasa nada.” (It doesn’t matter.) We may stumble over life’s bumps – quarantine, distress caused by remote learning, scant face-to-face connections, heightened uneasiness over health, finances and future, foregoing milestones, reeling from loss and grief – but these shouldn’t stall us. Let’s spend every ounce of our strength facing them head-on with the firmly held belief that God will draw a greater good from these speed bumps that appear in the road of our lives.

Here’s a Keep-Moving-Forward Playbook:

God, the Captain of the Team, holds the master playbook, He has figured out each move play-by-play. We are each His co-captain and we need only to take our cue from Him.

Let us embody the team spirit He has breathed into us to give us the will to win against all odds.

Trusting in the “master playbook” we steel ourselves with a “can-do mindset” and the determination to always play by its rules.

And it says, one, to shun self-absorption and isolation; two, to embrace service and collaboration.

And to always abide by the “Oath of Sportsmanship” recited at the opening of Intramurals

to “compete in life” according to the rule with courage, confidence and uprightness

Quoting Lebanese-American writer, poet Kahlil Gibran:

“March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.”