Can you hear that?

It's the sound of joy in the distance.

My wife and I are out for dinner with friends, and the four of us are reflecting on our kids launching themselves into their lives. They have two at college. We have one living in Chicago, chasing his dream of becoming a comedian.

“How,” we asked each other, “did you end up here? How did you decide where to go to college? What to study? Where to apply for your first job? When to make big changes? When to leap?”

I was thoroughly surprised by my answer: “If I give myself credit, I’ve always just followed my deepest intuition about what I want to do next.”

It happened in the spring of 1999, when I decided to go to graduate school at Penn State, rather than staying in the familiar confines of the University of Illinois. I met my wife at Penn State. Really, I started my life there.

It happened again, when I decided to break all the rules of being a therapist by starting a personal blog. And again, when my wife and I decided to quit our lives in the suburbs to relocate our family to my rural hometown. And again, last year when I decided to close my therapy practice to wander into the life of an authorpreneur.

It made me think of a hike with my wife on our twentieth wedding anniversary, on the island of Kauai—a long trek along a canyon toward a waterfall we couldn’t see. For a while, the path was worn and well-defined, but as we got closer to the waterfall, the path dissolved. The way became less clear. So we stopped and listened for the roar in the distance, walked toward the sound for a while, stopped and listened again, adjusted our course accordingly, and so on, until the waterfall appeared.

That experience made it into The Unhiding of Elijah Campbell, as Elijah is talking to the “ghost” of his grandmother:

…already a memory is surfacing within me. I picture that big pile of dirt at the edge of their property and an opening in the trees beyond it. A path.

“I went for a walk in the woods, didn’t I?” There’s awe in my voice, the kind of awe you might feel if you had hidden a little childhood treasure—the horror novel that awakened you to the wonders of reading, say, or the only photograph of you with your first dog—beneath a loose floorboard, forgotten you’d done so, and stumbled upon it a quarter century later while putting in new floors.

“Yes, you did,” she says, chuckling again. “And do you remember what you told me about that walk when you finally got back, long after all the hamburgers were cold?”

It’s starting to come back to me, though I’m not totally sure I can trust its veracity after so many years. Then I too chuckle, because I’m starting to wonder if, in this place of memory and imagination, with the ghost of my grandmother, there’s a Truth that is truer than eyewitness reports.

“Did I tell you that I found the stream, deep in the woods, even though the path ended way before it?

She smiles. “Yes, that’s exactly what you told me. You started out on the path, and you followed it as far as it would take you. By then, though, you could hear ever so faintly the babbling of the brook somewhere off in the distance. So, given that you couldn’t depend upon the path anymore, you wandered into the wilderness and, every once in a while, you’d stop and listen . . .”

“And I’d turn in the direction of the sound.” I say, completing her thought.

“That’s right,” she confirms. “And you know what? When you told me about starting out on the path, I could hear happiness in your voice. But when you told me about winding your way through the woods with only two things to guide you—the sound of the stream and your faith that it was worth walking toward—you had something else in your voice entirely.”

“Joy,” I say, but this time the dissatisfaction is replaced with a kind of awe.

“That’s right,” she says, now beaming at me like a proud teacher toward her prized pupil. “Happiness is had on the well-worn paths of our lives, when our plans are working out and our direction seems clear. But you have to leave that kind of happiness behind in order to venture into the wild, to fine-tune your ability to listen for love, and to enjoy the journey toward it, despite all its uncertainty and hardship.

As I was sitting there at dinner with our friends, discussing the mystery of how we found our way to that moment, I realized, it’s happening again. I can hear the babbling of a brook off in the distance. I don’t know quite what it looks like, but I do know I’m going to have to leave the path to find it. Experience tells me it’ll be worth the journey. Beauty always is. Joy always is.

Friends, I know I’ve been quiet around here the last couple of months, but that’s because I’m listening and discerning which direction to turn next. Already I’m getting some clarity, and I can’t wait to share it with you soon.

In the meantime, let’s talk.

Can you recall a scary-joyful time you left the well-worn path of life to journey through the wild toward a “waterfall?” What is your well-worn path right now? What is your waterfall? What would it look like to take one step in its direction?

I’d love to hear all about it in the comments.

Indeed, we all need to hear about it.

After all, courage isn’t created on our own, it’s collected when we come together.

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