Chapter 16: Tunnel Vision

This is from my journal dated May 30, 2008, as I was walking from D.C. to Pittsburgh while memorizing the gospel of John.  My friend Diane has joined me for this day of walking.

Here, camping among the forest dwellers in this wilderness section of the trail, I have made friends with the night.  If there were no darkness, I would not be able to see the white crescent that rises just beyond the reach of branches and casts moon shadows across my path on the night walk to the restroom.  Darkness gives quiet space for conversation around the campfire.    Darkness is a gifted time of rest from sore feet and tired muscles.  Darkness settles the daily nesting frenzy of the bird kingdom.  Shortly after dusk many creatures bed down and observe the great silence shared by monasteries.  There are a few exceptions: the call of the hunting owl,  the  rustle of a foraging mouse, the ambles of a skunk. In my life as a town dweller, darkness hardly prevents my activities since I can artificially light my indoor and outdoor space.  But here in the woods, I cannot hike in the night.  The onset of darkness puts boundaries on routine and enforces slowing down.  I have come to cherish this darkness.

The author of John’s gospel does not use darkness in this renewing way.  In his gospel, light is connected to God, life, and belief; darkness is light’s sinister opposite.  We hear in the opening poem: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  Darkness represents the powers that oppose God’s presence, the blindness of the human situation without a relationship with God, and ultimately death.  Darkness used in this manner reminds me of the Paw Paw Tunnel.

The darkness of this tunnel is not the welcoming kind that provides a background for stars.  Instead, it is a creepy, damp, suffocating kind of darkness; I have not made peace with it.  The first time I walked it with my husband Rick, over a year ago now, I  chose not to retrace my steps through the tunnel, but returned to the parking lot by climbing a strenuous trail over the mountain in order to stay in the open air.  One time through the Paw Paw was enough tunnel vision for one day.

Today is the second time I have hiked through the tunnel, and I am walking with my companion Diane, relieved not to be doing this alone.  The tunnel is a half mile long.  It was built where the Potomac River makes a wide loop and the construction of a tunnel across the neck of that loop through the mountain would save several miles and precious time of canal travel.   Inside the narrow tunnel the towpath shares space with the canal.  A railing separates the two and keeps pedestrians from stepping off the dirt ledge and falling into the standing water.  Since this railing is a new addition,  I wonder if any mules slipped off the edge years ago.  I heard a story at the local diner of a guy who leaned against a previous metal railing in the tunnel;  it collapsed with him into the canal.  Fortunately, the water was rather shallow, and he was rescued with only a broken bone.

Once Diane and I enter the tunnel, our flashlights barely illuminate the darkness that wraps around us.  Our lights only reveal  small, dim spots on the ground directly in front of us.  We have to pay attention to where we step. The path under our feet is uneven dirt, and puddles  have collected here and there from the dripping rock, caused by spring rain seeping through the mountain above us.  We can, however, see the half-circle of light, almost a glare, at the far end.  

When I came here before, we  heard noises coming toward us but could see nothing until people were suddenly walking three feet before us,  staring us in the face.   On this day we pass no one and only hear the drip of water and scrape of feet.  Diane walks in front of me, but since she stays close to the tunnel wall, she is completely absorbed by its blackness and I cannot see her silhouette against the distant light.  It is strange how I  feel alone in this bleak space, even though she is so close and Chester is at my side.  Sometimes vague florescent green eyes glint  under the surface of the black water below on our left.  Our flashlights do no good in helping us discover what creature, what kind of metallic rock, or what trash is resting there.  From the time we first entered,  we have watched the opening at the other end;  yet, after ages of walking, the light does not seem to grow significantly larger.  The  tunnel walk lasts about twelve minutes, maybe fifteen, but tunnel time for me is interminable.

The gospel of John makes it sound like a person is either walking in the dark (metaphorically speaking) or walking in the light, but I think the reality of discipleship is not so simple.  Because I am a sinner living in a broken, sometimes chaotic and cruel world, there are dark tunnels I must walk through.  Some tunnels are longer than others.  Some curve so that it takes a long time before I may even see the half circle of light at the other end.  The walk in the midst of these damp walls of the Paw Paw  is a picture of times I have felt overwhelmed by the darkness of grief and loss, or by discouragement and failure, or by anger and unforgiveness, or by my own critical cynicism.  Some darkness I bring on myself, although I may deny it at the time.  Other dark tunnels just happen.

As Diane and I near the end of the Paw Paw, I stop and get out my camera, wanting to capture the significance and relief of stepping into the light.  I fuss because there is a  construction sign  posted at the exit, “messing up” the picture.  When later I look at the photograph more carefully, I  notice that there is a cross made by the wooden frame holding the sign.  Looking from the darkness of  the tunnel, the light is just beyond this wooden cross.  How appropriate to tunnel vision!  If there is anything that the beloved disciple has been teaching me in John, it is that I can only see  the true light toward which I am walking through the cross of Jesus Christ.   My darkness, whether it consists of  unbelief, distrust, denial or grief, can never seal me out of  the light of God’s presence for this reason: Christ in love gives his life for the world, including me.  I walk past that very cross of Christ whenever I step into the light of my relationship to God.


The beloved disciple tells us that Jesus said:  "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." (John 8.12)


I am still friends with the evening of the forest dwellers, but it is good to know that no darkness, tunnel or otherwise, can thwart God’s loving grip that keeps drawing me out into the life-giving light of God’s self.

A grace between chapters

This is from my journal of the spring of 2008, while walking on a trail from D.C. to Pittsburgh, learning the gospel of John by heart. 

Something just landed in the algae-covered canal with a peal of alarm.  I think it is a female wood duck who is now swimming toward six downy babies.  (No, I didn't get a picture.) She skims to the other side of the canal and slaps her wings on the water, whether to distract me from her babies or to get their attention to follow, I don’t know.  But follow her they do, while she makes an unusual, clear call.  I continue to walk in the direction they are swimming when suddenly the mother bursts ahead, skittering and slapping on the green muck.  The little ones can’t keep up, and they quickly lose her. Then they start peeping frantically, looking for her.  I am beside them now.  Fearing the stranger, one of them turns around and heads back in the opposite direction, moving far away from me.  Since mom is not around, the others chase after their sibling leader.

Meanwhile the female duck, farther ahead of me, is swimming in circles.  Her little ones, now a distance away, are still calling for her, but she holds back.  Finally, having waited until my walking brings me closer to her, she lifts herself out of the canal, glides over the towpath to the river, and furtively circles back behind trees in the direction of her babies. The peeping stops, a good sign, except for one lone peep sounding nearby.  A duckling, slightly bigger than the others, calls from the spot where the mother duck took to the air.  Does this one belong to her or is it an orphan?  Will it find its siblings?  Or will it, out on its own in the algae jungle, become turtle or hawk food?  I do not know the ways of ducks, but I do know the vast vulnerability that can come from loneliness and separation.  It is echoing now across the water.  Yes, I have known in many ways, in myself and in others, that pitiful search for a safe haven, a soft wing.

"They will not follow the voice of a stranger, but they will run from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."  John 10:5

Jesus said that.  He did not consider himself a stranger. Once he thought of himself as the wing of a mother hen.  Food for thought.

Chapter 15: Flying Fuzz

 It has been a long time since I have posted anything.  A new baby granddaughter has a way of doing that.  But now that I am back, this is a continuation of my journal written along the pilgrimage of 2008 from D.C. to Pittsburgh while learning the gospel of John by heart.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008:      Cohill Station to Little Orleans

 It is exhilarating to be hiking the trail again after several weeks away. I have missed it.  Not that I wasn’t thrilled by our explorations on the northwest Pacific coast where creation seems dominated by the ocean and sky, and where majestic, mountainous islands are only brief interruptions to the flow of tides.  Along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska, the land submits to powerful winds, gouging glaciers, and torrents from melting  snow.    Water and air perform their work on the earth: they flood ravines, carve rocks, and scrape massive spruce trees into the surf.

Here on the banks of the Potomac, a river I have grown to love, the water and sky are more humble.  The memory of the western sea’s vast volume fades.  In comparison, the slender channel of this eastern river borrows only modest space from the hillsides and bottom land.  The unlimited expanse of the Pacific coastal sky is gone.  Here the sky is tucked securely behind trees in full foliage.  I had grown accustomed to the swaying ship, but now I am back to standing on stable ground.  I recognize that the towpath looks different to me, partly because of where I have been and what I have seen, but partly because it has done its own changing while I was gone.  The bluebells are long faded and fallen.  In their place wild flocks of pink, white and lavender scatter along the shaded pathway.  The large full-grown leaves overhead have introduced a new rustling sound.  Weeds are tall, ferns are lush and poison ivy  climbs tree trunks with great vigor.

Since Rick has stayed behind on business in Vancouver, a friend from church has joined me for a few days.  Diane walks a ways ahead of me while I mumble through the ninth chapter of John.  The drawn out story I am learning is full of detail  about a man who was born blind and healed by Jesus.   I suppose Jesus could have just said the word and the man would have been able to see, but instead the healing happens in steps.  First Jesus spits on the ground.  Then he picks up the damp mud with his fingers.  He spreads the mud  on the man’s eyes.  Then Jesus tells the blind man to go wash in the pool called Siloam.  The man goes to the pool, washes and comes back able to see.  Even though the man has his sight for the first time in his life, the story is not done yet.  He will learn to see even more. 


The man’s  neighbors next argue over whether he could be the same person, blind from birth, who use to sit and beg.  When he tries to assure them that he is indeed the same man,  they ask him how it happened.  He tells them a man named Jesus did it. Then the religious leaders get involved and ask him the same question.  He  responds again that Jesus healed him, explains to them the steps of washing in the pool, and when asked how in the world that this could have happened, the man replies that Jesus  must be a prophet.  An argument among the religious elite commences, some refusing to believe what the man says happened to him, others complaining that Jesus should be condemned a sinner for breaking the Sabbath by healing.

Meanwhile as Diane and I  walk, we become increasingly aware of white fuzz  drifting through the air.  By midday, it is like a lazy snow shower.  Although we gaze above and below us, we cannot identify its source.  Diane finds a wad of the fuzz resting on a plant on the ground.  We at first think we have discovered what we are looking for, but further investigation shows there are no nearby plants shedding the white stuff.  If a ground plant is spawning the fuzz, we finally ask ourselves, how come so much of it is flying so high?  We start peering upwards for the culprit as we walk along, eyes straining, necks aching.  Where is it coming from?

“Here is an astonishing thing.  You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” (John 9.30)     

This is how the man answers his examiners when he is  brought in a second time by the Pharisees for questioning.  He says  that certainly Jesus could not be a sinner and do such an extraordinary healing.  It is only logical, he says,  that Jesus must be sent from God, at which point derogatory comments are hurled at him, and the man is thrown out of the gathering.    The religious community, skeptical neighbors, even his parents have let him down. The gift of sight has come to him with a cost. 

Jesus, hearing what has happened, searches for the man and asks him a pointed question: “Do you believe in the son of man?”   The term “son of man” was used by people to designate the one that God would anoint and send to save the people.  The man asks Jesus who this son of man is so that he can believe in him.  I imagine Jesus’ reply has a trace of teasing humor, “You have seen him.”  (Remember, the man hasn’t been seeing anyone for more than a few hours, so the possibilities of who he has seen are  limited.)  Then Jesus, the light of the world, reveals himself by saying, “The one speaking with you is he,” and the man quickly responds, “Lord, I believe.” 

Understanding and inner sight come step by step for the blind man: first knowing Jesus as the man who healed him, then Jesus as a prophet, then as one sent by God, then as  the son of man for whom the world has been waiting, and finally as the one  in whom he, the man who can now see, believes.  The man not only sees Jesus with his healed eyes, but now with a heart of faith, a true progression from blindness to belief, a progression of grace upon grace.

Diane and I are making progress too.  Diane finally spots  several large, dangling pods high above us in a tree.  The fuzz  is spilling out of them and we can see it scattering in the breeze.  In the tangle of branches, however, it is difficult to tell to which tree and trunk the pods belong.  She pulls her plant and wildlife book from her backpack, and we compare the possibilities of trunks standing near us.  Yes, what we are seeing fits the description of an eastern cottonwood tree.  For the rest of the day and into the next, we watch the cottonwood seedlings blow past us, their white softness collecting like snow on the dark canal water.  Then, suddenly, the season of flying fuzz has passed; the air empties.  The cottonwood seeds sink into water, burrow into the ground and go about the business of germinating.  Meanwhile, their parent trees concentrate on photosynthesis now that the daylight is at its longest.

I wonder if in our resurrected life I can have a interview with this man who received his sight from Jesus.   I would like to ask what surprised him the most when he suddenly had this new dimension of seeing.  Was it the blossoms on the olive tree?  The face of a beautiful woman?  The clouds streaked with sunrise color?  The steam curling from a warm loaf of bread?    I would like to ask him how the rest of his life went: what work did he take up when he could leave the business of begging?  Did he have children and, if so, did they then run out to play in the mud every time he told them this story about Jesus spreading mud on his eyes?  In their pretend game,  did they argue over who could spit the biggest to be Jesus and who would get mud smeared on their face like their daddy?

The beloved disciple tells us that Jesus said: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9.5)

This pilgrim prays:

I see astounding things on this trail everyday: like these  fluffy cottonwood seeds, pregnant with new life, gliding on the breeze to discover a home.  I am grateful for sight to wonder at your world.  I am even more thankful for the inward sight to know you---a gift that is even  more precious and which changes me profoundly.  I trust that one day I will see you face to face as clearly as I have finally seen these eastern cottonwoods.  Meanwhile, be my vision, Lord, still invisible  to my eyes, but a light in my heart.    
   

Chapter 14: Signs (part 2)

(I have been waiting along the road for my husband Rick to pick us up in the truck from our day's hike, but he somehow sailed by without seeing us.  We are left on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone coverage to reach him. This is a continuation of the post found  here.) 

How much quieter it is now on the side of the road.  To be unnoticed and overlooked leaves an uneasy silence.  Only a few deep breaths ago I was full of relishing the signs of spring around me.  But now, in the empty space of being left behind, I am paying attention to the angle of the sun.  I estimate the hours of daylight remaining (just in case) and hear the sound of a mower far away uphill.  Would that direction lead to a land line phone at someone’s farm?  I try my cell phone again, but it only beeps an “emergency numbers only” signal.  I wonder: if I dial 911, would it really work?  I reluctantly admit that this is not a situation that warrants my trying it out...yet.

Chester (my dog) and I begin walking in the direction that Rick's truck disappeared.  We walk for maybe five minutes before coming to a strange, three-way intersection with one road curving narrowly under an abandoned railroad bridge.  The road sign is rather confusing. The road I am standing on is not labeled the same as my trail guide indicates.  So now I wonder if Rick was looking for me on the wrong road because of the sign confusion?  Unfortunately I have no idea which of the two remaining roads Rick hurriedly drove down, so rather than stand and look lost (which technically I’m not; here's the railroad after all, so I must be at Cohill Station), Chester and I walk back back to the apparently unremarkable, unnoticeable wooden bridge where we had been bypassed.  I don't relax and sit down enjoying the spring weather anymore; instead I  decide we will be a better sign seen more quickly if we stand up on our tired legs.

The afternoon of waiting drags on and becomes the hour for folks to be driving home from work, although in this remote area there can’t be many homes to drive home to.  I notice that I am getting hungry and remember that I met the wife of Hancock's mayor this morning.  She was power-walking on the trail when, passing her, I asked her about the best place to eat dinner.  She diplomatically told me the town’s restaurants were all good, but she offered the name of the longest running, most historical eating spot.  Home-style cooking, she said.  Beside this interminably empty road, I can smell a Maryland crabcake coming...if I ever get out of here.  Each sound of a  vehicle approaching from around the bend brings new hope.
 
After five or six disappointments with long spaces in between, the black truck, much slower now, comes into view.  This time I'm ready, start waving sooner, and pour all my mental concentration into being conspicuous.  Only when the truck finally veers sharply over into the small cleared area, do I know for sure that dog and human have been discovered, that we have successfully been enough of a sign for Rick to pull over.

After all, as I mull over this incident later, we disciples of Jesus are suppose to be signs: signs to others that God indeed has come.  That God is healing.  That God is feeding.  That God’s Messiah is abundantly present and working in this age.  Am I a sign that is enthusiastically pointing to Christ's presence?  Or am I sitting down daydreaming and preoccupied, lost from view in the weeds and grass as others rush by in their busy life’s focus?  (I find out later Rick’s eyes were focused down on his GPS on the first drive-by.)

Being a sign to others that God is present in the world can take some intentional effort on my part, and, at the very least, require the Holy Spirit’s intervention for connections to be made:  a smile, a wave, an invitation, putting ourselves out into the road of conversation.  How to do that in everyday life?  A bowl of soup, a clean bed, a pounding hammer, a note written.  My purpose is to be a sign to the searcher who is looking.  Of course, as a sign I may not recognize who is searching, and the searcher may not have a clue what sign they are looking for, but it is up to God to bring the two of us together.

Right now, however, I am simply relieved that this sign (me) and this searcher (Rick and black truck) have found each other.  I pull open the rear door and let Chester jump in, throw my backpack on the back floor, and we head into town for crabcakes.  There’s enough daylight left to admire the ribbon of blue river winding below the layers of hazy green mountain ridges piling one behind the other.  These are visible signs that it is once again a good spring on God’s earth.

This pilgrim prays:  Day after day, following this path through and around, along and across, I  gaze at the signs surrounding me: signs that you are...you are...you are and always will be.  Signs that you laugh in joy like a little child over the antics of your created chipmunks.  Signs that in exuberant, chattering river noise, in the deeply graced silences along the way, and in the human but God-breathed words of ancient scripture,  you are communicating,  “I am....I am...I am always loving you.”
          

Awe

On the brim of a mountain
amid smaller mountains, I lean back
against the not young, not so old pine,
her photo in hand.

Circling winds stir branches and
I sense our subtle swaying,
bone and wood together, over shed needles
resting on soft ground. I've become a grandmother,

not so old, no longer young,
brimming with awe for the smallest,
youngest, dearest Ella,
while the very earth is shifting underneath.

Chapter 14: Signs

From the journal on the long walk from D.C. to Pittsburgh while memorizing the gospel of John. The story continues.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008:  Hancock to Cohill Station

Signs can be important. There are different kinds of signs along this towpath.  There are brown, square wooden posts, one every mile along the trail, with the mileage carved into them and the indented numerals painted white: 32...55...91...113.  I match up the mile marker to the trail map I carry in my pocket, because it can be handy to know how far I've come, how many miles to the next trailside campsite (as in portable toilet), and how far one has to go to the destination (a comfortable seat in the pick-up truck).

Sometimes I miss the mile posts when I am absorbed in learning John, or when I am looking around at something else like the pawpaw trees, so I have gotten the bright idea of trying to train Chester to notice them for me.    So today I try placing hot dog bits on the top square surface of every mile post we pass; Chester immediately stands on his hind legs and gobbles it down.    I figure if I am absorbed staring at turtles or muskrats in the canal, I won’t miss mile posts if he pulls me to them in anticipation of eating hot dog bits. That is as far as the training goes.  From his perspective, mile markers are pretty indistinguishable from the rest of the scenery, unless, of course, another canine has peed on it.  For him to notice the mile post first, then drag me over to put a treat on it...well, that seems to be either beyond him or, more likely, beyond my patience to train him right now.  So much for Chester helping me out with mileage signs.

There are the occasional campsite signs.  Each primitive campsite along the towpath is marked by a sign that gives a name, such as Huckleberry Hill or Killiansburg Cave, followed by how many miles east and west to the next campsite.  These signs catch the attention of swiftly moving bikers and help them plan whether to stop for the day or continue on.  For a walker these signs are rather superfluous.  I am moving slow enough that I don't need a signs help to see the picnic table in the clearing over there, the campfire pit, the portable toilet and the hand pump for water.  The sign’s information about mileage to the next campsite is irrelevant, since it is usually six to ten miles away and I probably won’t pass it until tomorrow.  I do, however, enjoy reading the campsite names that trigger my curiosity about what might be nearby.  Huckleberries?  Too early in the spring.  A cave?  I start watching the bluffs on my right.

There are signs posted in the major parking lots which serve as the popular entrance points to the towpath.  These signs are helpful for people traveling in vehicles trying to find the trail.  “Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park”  the large wooden signs read,  noting the specific location underneath: Edwards Ferry, or Hancock, or Great Falls.

However, at the less frequented access points to the canal trail, there are occasionally no signs at all.  When Rick and I go searching for the location of the next pick-up point, we often must rely, not on a sign, but on maps, GPS navigation, and the river, of course, to ascertain exactly where we are.

And so it is there are no C & O signs for Cohill Station when I arrive here this afternoon.  Lately Rick and I have become lax about investigating the pick-up points in advance, little realizing how much of a problem that will turn out to be.  With the mountain ridges always blocking the way, it is a time consuming, round-about drive to check things out.  A dozen mile trail walk can easily be accessed only by a twenty-five mile circuitous route by truck.  After a long day's, I usually am more interested in getting back to the campground for a shower rather than figuring out where the next day's access points.

Now it is only because of the previous mile post I just passed, that I suspect that Cohill Station must be near.  I pause to check my trail guide and then look all around me.  I see a road on the other side of the canal through some trees.  Sure enough, not much farther on the trail there is a wooden foot bridge that leads over the empty canal to the road.   I walk across.  There is nothing here to indicate to a driver on the road that the cleared dirt area twenty yards way is anything more than a farm turn-around.  It certainly does not look like a parking lot for the trail.  There are no buildings around; no abandoned station.  Nor is there any C&O sign that would notify Rick that this is Cohill Station.

Well, he won’t need a sign, I think to myself.  I will sit here right on the foot bridge, the road within  four feet of me.  I myself will be the sign that he cannot miss.

I slip my pack off my shoulders, tie Chester to the wooden rail, and pull out snacks and water for both of us.  This has been a shorter walk today and it is only 2:00 pm.  Lounging on the smooth bridge boards, I try to call Rick on my cell phone to tell him I am done walking, but there is no cell phone coverage out here.  Ever since we have entered the mountains, cell phone service has been spotty on the trail.  Geologically the Potomac has done its hard work of carving through soil and rock, ridge after ridge, as it flows east, and here it lies deep in the shadows of the bluffs, cliffs and worn mountains it has gashed.

I don’t mind waiting awhile.  I have been wistfully aware that this is my last day walking the trail in early spring.  Tomorrow we pack up, store the trailer in the campground and head back home to prepare for our three week trip to the Pacific Northwest.  When I return to this bridge next month, the wild flowers that have become familiar will be long gone. The tree leaves will no longer be tiny and tender green.  Magenta pawpaw blossoms will have dried and disappeared, exposing green fruit.  Ducklings will have lost their fuzzy down.  Spring floods will have waned.   Part of me laments leaving these signs of young, unfolding spring.

I have been learning about signs in John’s gospel.  Jesus is often doing “signs” that are supposed to point to who he is.  In the chapter I’ve been working on the past few days, Jesus feeds the crowd of five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, and, when he leaves in a boat, the crowd chases after him along the shore.  When they find him the next day, they ask, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"

Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.  Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."  (John 6.25-27)

When the crowd realizes that Jesus is not going to give them another free meal right away, they try a different angle.  They said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?  Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to  eat.'"

(Everybody likes a good show, a free meal, an entertaining sign one can't miss.)

Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."  They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."  Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  John 6.30-35

Most of the crowd  had trouble understanding the spiritual nature of what Jesus was saying.  They didn’t get the sign.  When Jesus starts talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, that does it.  Even some of his regular followers end up abandoning him, thinking his words are either ridiculous or that he is talking about some sort of cannibalism.  Jesus’ signs seem  turning people away  in another direction.

I am soon to have a small taste of what that is like.  I have been waiting for about an hour now, and in that time only a few cars have passed by. Some horses.  A few bikers on the trail.  Otherwise it has been very still in this comfortably warm sunshine with the minutes drifting by.  Then I see it: a shiny black truck heading up the road toward me.

“Chester, here comes our ride.”  I begin to get up slowly, I admit, since my tired body does not move quickly from ground position.  I offer a big smile as the truck approaches.  But truck is moving too fast and whizzes past.  My smile vanishes.  He must not have seen me.  I run into the road, start waving and yelling.  The shouting is a  futile endeavor since the windows of the air-conditioned truck are up, but somehow the energy of shouting into the dusty, deaf air makes me feel like I am doing something useful.  I thought I was the sign impossible to miss.  How could Rick not have seen me?

I am soon to ask that question of myself many times as I suddenly realize I am quite alone in the middle of nowhere.

To be continued...

A beautiful gift

Today I received a gift...a very beautiful gift from an anonymous donor. It is a hammered  dulcimer.

I use to have a hammered dulcimer a couple of decades ago, but the wood warped, split and the instrument, therefore, became useless.  I had never became fluent in playing it and remained a beginner.  But a dulcimer, as its name implies, has such a sweet sound.  It was fun to do simple things at worship with it.  Even at my basic proficiency (or lack thereof), people loved it.

There is a lot going on in my life and work, so recently I have felt pulled in many directions.   Bemoaning the fact, a partner in prayer has been praying with me that, in spite of all that is going on around me to pull this way and that, I might be able to make choices that keep God and wholeness remaining at the center.  

And so the dulcimer arrives, begging to be tuned and practiced.  Begging to be a part of worship in a few weeks when we are singing to an Irish melody.  Begging to become (re-become) part of my life.  Is this one more thing pulling at my attention?  Another demand for time?  

Or, here's the other possibility: as a result of our prayers, is the dulcimer, in fact, the answer to prayer?  Is the dulcimer God's centering invitation to relax, to play, to love, to delight, and to share with others? 

Maybe I'll begin to find out this weekend.