{"id":749,"date":"2009-11-12T14:24:40","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T14:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/have-you-found-your-port.html"},"modified":"2009-11-12T14:24:40","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T14:24:40","slug":"have-you-found-your-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/have-you-found-your-port.html","title":{"rendered":"Have You Found Your Port?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SailingShip3.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Have you ever come across something that you felt you were somehow meant to find today<\/i>, in this exact present moment?<\/p>\n

This morning, my husband was filling out a form that required that he list the exact date of his graduation from Cornell, the college where we met.  Looking it up, he came across the commencement address by Frank H. T. Rhodes, who in 1995 was leaving the university after 18 years as its president.<\/p>\n

Usually college presidents can be a little ho-hum to the 22-year-old crowd.  But we would have listened to Rhodes read from the phone book.  He just had that wisdom-aura, and if he was speaking, we were listening.<\/p>\n

His speech connected Ithaca, New York, the beautiful but often cruelly cold upstate hamlet in which Cornell sits, with Ithaka, the Greek island to which Odysseus returned after his adventures fighting the Trojan War.  The speech was about where we hoped to go, what anchored us, and what set us free.  Almost 15 years later, Rob and I both remember it, and re-reading it this morning, we were blown away by how it seemed to plug right into our souls.<\/p>\n

Here’s the part that got me, and that I want to share with you:<\/p>\n

“…Without conviction, there can be no direction, and without direction,
\nthere can be no journey. Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork
\nin the road, take it,” but Seneca was closer to the truth: “If one does
\nnot know to which port one is sailing, no wind is the right wind.”
\nThere might still be movement, but from one unplanned destination to
\nanother. And so I hope Ithaca has given you convictions, for they are
\nthe truths you will live by as the journey proceeds. What compass of
\nconviction guides your journey?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think, lately, I’ve been feeling like “no wind is the right wind,” and old Seneca put the angst better than I ever could.  So I take it as an encouraging sign–and a challenge– that we reconnected with that 15-year-old speech today<\/i>.  What compass of conviction guides my  journey?  What compass of conviction guides yours?<\/p>\n

In other words, have you given much thought lately to the question, “Do I know to which port I am sailing?”<\/p>\n

Click here to read Rhodes’ entire address.<\/a><\/p>\n

(image via: http:\/\/www.rb-29.net<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Like what you see? <\/strong>Click here to subscribe<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and get Fresh Living in your in-box every day!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever came across something that you felt you were somehow meant to find today, in this exact present moment?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nHave You Found Your Port? - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/have-you-found-your-port.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Have You Found Your Port? - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you ever came across something that you felt you were somehow meant to find today, in this exact present moment?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/have-you-found-your-port.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-12T14:24:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/SailingShip3-thumb-220x165-9337.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Have You Found Your Port? 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}