There used to be a game on the playground we called Walking the Line. What it involved was that one person would be the "leader" and everyone else would follow the leader, in single file, wherever he or she went.

There was usually some element of danger or potential danger in the game; most leaders, unless they were timid, would walk the line across the top of the monkey bars, over the balance post of the see-saws, even between the kids madly swinging their way heavenward on the swingsets. One leader tried to get all of us killed (or at least flung to our deaths) by walking the line across a merry-go-round at full tilt; another suggested walking off-campus and down the road, but was talked out of this folly. Anyone who fell "out of line" was "lost" and spent the rest of recess watching the rest of the line go wending through challenge and mishap, through snow and sweltering heat, until the bell rang and it was time to go back to class.

I recall the few times I led the line, and in particular this week, for some reason, I was thinking about one of my favorite places to walk it: through the abovementioned swingsets. I remember bragging about the "zone" where, if you squinted your eyes just so and walked fast enough, while you might pass close enough to a swinger to get a breeze in your face, you would never collide; or across the see-saws, where no matter how shaky your knees were, you'd never slide off onto one of the sides and fall down. This perfect zone was a visible path to me, and I tried to instill it in those who came behind, so they, too, could pass by without accident.

Ma'at in many ways is like the "zone" we saw in our childhood game: a safe place, a "middle ground" where even the most difficult challenges cannot penetrate. As long as we remain on that path, we cannot possibly be lost. Should we stray from it even a fraction, however our responsibility becomes our own -- and anything could befall us. Ma'at is a passive leader; She doesn't, like some of those who led the line in our game, make everyone hold hands or count their steps so they don't fall out of rhythm. But She is present, like that magical zone between the swings that promised a clear swath to walk without being broadsided.

We can choose to walk Her path or not. She does not compel anyone to do so; She merely waits, offers the safe ground, showing what could be if one would only give over to walking the line in the zone. Those who follow Her do not, like those children who waited by the recess gate, get left behind frowning, regretting that they chose not to keep up, or took that one little risk, only to be thrown off-course. We have to make an effort to be in Her line, but the rewards are great.

In life, outside our childhood games, Ma'at's path can sometimes seem very demanding. Walking it asks difficult things of us; things we might originally view as impossible; things that will take us places we have never been before and possibly never wish to go. Ma'at is not always gentle with us; but She is always, always fair. It has been said that Netjer never gives us a challenge we cannot handle. This is true: but very often, we must be convinced of this before we realize it. And it's during these times, when we actively wander off on our own paths, that Ma'at is shown quite clearly, because in an interesting irony, we sometimes cannot appreciate Her until we know She is far away from us, and then we realize She is never the one that moved.