“The task of mid-life is the task of finding the difficult, often dangerous road to the eldership of love. It becomes, for all of us, the road worth taking, the road back home.” So ends the Homeward Road chapter from the David Whyte book, The Heart Aroused.

Howard Thurman once confided (when he was in his eighties and not in good health), “The hard thing when you get old is to keep your horizons open. The first part of your life everything is in front of you, all of your potential and promise. But over the years, you make decisions; you carve yourself into a given shape. Then the challenge is to keep discovering the green growing edge.” Sam Keen writes of Howard Thurman’s notion of a green growing edge in his book, Learning To Fly: “It is a place of openness to what is new, a willingness to expand our sense of the possible, a place where the ego is constantly dying, being reborn; where construction gives way to inspiration.”

I recently celebrated my 77th birthday. On that occasion, I passed a good part of the day re-examining my “often dangerous road,” and that “green growing edge.” Towards the conclusion on that birthday of review and discovery, during that golden time just before sunset, I came to understand quite strongly that I am, surely and steadily, on a very familiar Homeward Road, and in that place of openness to whatever might be new. With a welcome sigh, I told myself: this magic time is just right for me.

I’m the kind of fellow who has always had a wide-open sense of what’s possible (perhaps to a fault). Some folks say, I was born “ever-green.” Years ago, a friend called me her “ever-green innocent; an open door to whatever might be.” Of course, I’ve had my share of obstacles and life accidents. And, I’ve long believed that we learn more from our mistakes and difficulties than from our successes and painless times. I am certain: it’s my train wreck experiences that have paved the way for my rewarding accomplishments. I’m feeling no pain in this moment, nor do I invite pain to my green growing edge. I simply have the urge to quietly encourage whatever is next for me.

I have been an educator for more than fifty years. As a teacher and school leader, I’ve always tried to give to others – my encouragement and my enthusiasm. These are the gifts I have to give. I’ve long felt that my birthright gift, that way of being that’s been mine since birth, in an inclination to find out what others passionately care about, and then, to cheer them on. Both as a teacher in the public schools, and as a college professor, I’ve tried to be a messenger of encouragement.

Now, as I move along that Homeward Road of mine, I’d like to expand my sense of what’s possible. I want to continue giving the gifts that are mine to give. I believe that my green growing edge is expanding towards what’s possible for leaders at the level of the neighborhood and the community. Perhaps supporting community leadership will be my new work: in a new place, but on that same old road. In the neighborhood,  the community, – might those who labor there welcome a messenger of encouragement?