It's a lonely image, that of the "Wandering Jew," and the one below in particular.  You may notice that the person in this painting is wandering past the crucified Jesus, past the one who proclaimed that he had come to deliver the Jewish people--his people--from sin. As the wind blows and the storm rages, however, this person is moving determinedly ahead, resolved to keep going another way.

     In many ways, however, all of us walk the path of this "Wandering Jew."  Whether we believe in Jesus, Allah, Krishna, or some other expression of the divine, we frequently forget about him in the course of our daily life.  Perhaps more than we think, we live and breath with nary a thought of him.  We wander through the storms of our lives, our hearts hardened and chin held high:  we will survive, regardless.
     The painting before us captures existence aptly.  Life can indeed be like hiking through a cold and forsaken wilderness.  Small wonder that we try so hard to control it; little surprise that we do whatever we can to contain it.  We want to keep afloat.

    And in most instances, we will.  Yet we all have a choice.  We can navigate life declining belief in anything bigger than what it is, or we can live life believing in the full range of its possibilities.  Only in the latter way, however, will we see the larger point. Otherwise, though we wander determinedly, we will wander from dust to dust, one day coming into being, another day vanishing forever.  It's over.

     If we are personal, and we are, there's more.