Finding your voice: reflection questions on The Journey

Here is a poem that I used last week in my spiritual direction group. As I have been reflecting over this piece, here are some questions rise up.

• Is it true that the hardest thing in the world is to be who you are created to be?
• How do others needs keep you from being yourself and help you become yourself?
• Do you think that the woman in this poem is selfish or courageous?
• Do you read this differently if the woman is low-income, not educated, and with little opportunity?
• Is it okay to leave people behind?
• Are we responsible to "save others"?
• What does your own voice sound like and how do you know when you hear it?
• Do the people in your life encourage you to listen to your voice?
• How is the voice of the Holy Spirit and your own voice connected or not?
  
  The Journey by Mary Oliver
  
  
  One day you finally knew
  
  what you had to do, and began,
  
  though the voices around you
  
  kept shouting
  
  their bad advice --
  
  though the whole house
  
  began to tremble
  
  and you felt the old tug
  
  at your ankles.
  
  "Mend my life!"
  
  each voice cried.
  
  But you didn't stop.
  
  You knew what you had to do,
  
  though the wind pried
  
  with its stiff fingers
  
  at the very foundations,
  
  though their melancholy
  
  was terrible.
  
  It was already late
  
  enough, and a wild night,
  
  and the road full of fallen
  
  branches and stones.
  
  But little by little,
  
  as you left their voices behind,
  
  the stars began to burn
  
  through the sheets of clouds,
  
  and there was a new voice
  
  which you slowly
  
  recognized as your own,
  
  that kept you company
  
  as you strode deeper and deeper
  
  into the world,
  
  determined to do
  
  the only thing you could do --
  
  determined to save
  
  the only life you could save.