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.

River of small stones

Thus, the river of small stones has come to the end.

Each day (almost) in January, I have written a short description of  a moment when I have been attentive to what's going on around me.  (Check previous posts.) The challenge was given by two writers at "River of Stones" for people to write a "small stone" every day for the month of January.  Their definition of a small stone is a "very small piece of writing that precisely captures a fully engaged moment."  It's a great invitation, but I added to it.  I allowed whatever small stone I observed to form a prayer.

What has this experience taught me?  First, the engaged moments have invited me to pray for things that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.  That's been pretty cool.  Secondly, I am mindful of how many of my most attentive moments have come on the morning walks which are part of my prayer time.  Therefore you have heard a lot about birds and sky and the like.  Thank you for your patience.  But finally, I also have become aware of how hard the discipline of writing is, and I have a new respect for writers who sit down to the task of communicating every day through the written word.  Thank you, writers around the world.

Now, on to being a pastor....(which includes much attentiveness and frequent writing.)

Small stone, day 31

Sitting in the group, 
it suddenly comes with clarity, 
with certainty, 
with joy,
that there is so much work left to do, 
work left for me to do.


Praying today:  With gratitude for the opportunities to work and serve faithfully.

Small stone, day 30

In the middle of the city,
in the heart of a busy day, 
over dirty concrete streets,
a piercing call
twice spoken
I know a hawk when I hear one;
so sudden visions of northern exposure
and sitka pine set
telephone poles swaying.


Praying today:  For wild creatures adapting to living near people.