I bought my first Book of the Way (The Tao Te Ching) in 1983. In it I read, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” And reasoned, “The truth that can be told is not the eternal Truth.” Making a complete mockery of the question, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” So what’s with a way and a truth that cannot be told, said, explained, said?

The way is the way of life. It is how we live. It is how we know what to do. Who can say? Who knows? Yet, that doesn’t slow us down. We live as though we know what we are doing, and whether we do or not is not ours to say. We are just lucky to be here and it is luck all the way. Luck and laughter and not taking anything seriously.

If nothing ever goes our way, we are taking everything much too seriously. If everything always goes our way, the Tao is strongly with us every step of the way. And something is guiding our way that is not our will and our desire. No one ever willed a life worth living. And that is the joy at the heart of “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

Children on a playground, birds in the air. What guides their boat on its path through the sea? We don’t know what we are doing here, now or what we will be doing next. And if we do, we don’t have a life worth living.