A walk to remember

I set out to discover, to find a walk for my soul, a way to remember. It’s a journey within a journey: and isn’t this how life spins us? 

Mist rises from pond’s mouth, living air sighing happy at the sight of sun, and my soul rises to breathe it. 

First lines of the day’s new song penetrate the world in shimmering rays. It’s an ancient melody, an aching ballad, a groaning hope. The aged earth sings it fresh to its Creator in this autumn, the first time for this day, the same as each day since her inception. And doesn’t the habit of mercy meet us new, and old, each day?

Dependence on fresh graces can stagnate into assumption and dullness, unless we receive eyes to see. It humbles us, making us a forever student, one who always needs more than they know. But it makes us alive, hunger beckoning us on, because we have tasted this goodness. And doesn’t grace upon grace spiral up like this, where we come around again and again to the same beauties, always new? 

Guidance and boundaries dot the walkway, and grace isn’t so much a tight rope to be nervously balanced as it is a fenced enclosure, in which to dance. And how often do I listen for the invitation to celebrate? 

Walnuts scatter across the path, seeds fulfilling their destiny, many of them disintegrating into fertilizer, never to realize their potential. And how many of us rot away? And how can we help it, unless we are rescued and planted? One road leads to ultimate death, the other to fruitful life. And how many lives pass through time’s ebb, never living the glory of resurrection? How many victims never get the chance to even breathe this air? How many lives snuffed out so soon, so needlessly . . . and the world can be cruel. 

The path winds upward, and it has to. We have to know there is something above, something more, something to dream for. It requires more energy to climb, and round the bends; and often the dullness of resignation calls louder than the pain of hope.  And don’t we have to know that there is something good ahead? The breeze tells us, the sun invites us, the path beckons us on. And isn’t the path itself a mercy? 

I find the long road. I turn right and follow it to the end.  It’s a raised embankment, with deep ravines on either side. And isn’t grace a highway between two ditches? 

The road ends sudden, cleared and built for a purpose fulfilled, and that is all. And it is enough. Some journeys end abrupt, and we cannot retain sight or use of all the paths we walk. Each leads on to another road, and if we stopped and built cities, the journey’s wonder would die. And how often do I settle for the safety of apathy, of a life so protected from pain that I lose a reason to die, and a reason to live?

I turn and retrace my steps, remembering, following back, so I can walk again, and travel further. And in remembering, we are re-made. The pieces fall into place, the melody played backwards teaches us what we could not know while questing ahead. 

And the paradox of grace tells us what we could not hear in the clamour, in the deafening pain, and the anguished silence:

“Yet I will still hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.

Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him.’

The Lord is good to those who depend on Him, to those who search for Him.

So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.” 

Treasures of Wait

We embark, she and I, on this journey planned months ago; now suddenly
revealed as perfect in timing. How is it that a spur-of-the moment
idea, an uncanny seasonal ticket sale, and a haphazard, crazed
schedule culminate in this gift?

The first flight ascends seamless, descends perfect; and we wait for
our second plane, enjoying the several hours allotted to us. We walk,
we muse, we get smoothies. And we look for our flight information,
noticeably absent from the board. Changed gates lead us wandering
around our terminal appendage, just relaxing.

The second pilot is sick, the gate attendant announces, and the
soonest replacement sits five hours away, so we must wait. We wander
back to food courts and eat an overpriced dinner. Conversation spills
out in the gifted stillness of this prolonged moment. We explore our
souls; we speak life; we catch vision for the week ahead of us at the
International House of Prayer.

We read and wander, and enjoy each other, thanking God for the
unlimited text plans purchased on the way to the border. We are not
alone, and it is good.

Delayed again, this time without reason, and we stand around with
tired passengers. But we are happy; this trip is in Another's hands.
And it is for us to enjoy.

Cancelled, nearly six hours after the originally slated departure
time. People rush mad to service counters, only to wait long and
pensive for the rearrangements. We chat together: about rental cars,
chartered buses, and the business we travel for. Hours pass in this
way, looking for the shortest line, watching people sit and wait and

 talk And what more can we do? Our fate is not our own.

Batteries run low, so we charge phones, as one by one friends and
family quiet into the silence of slumber. "That was going to be our
joy," I muse. "Jesus is our Joy," she replies; and I see that in the
silence our delight can only come from the One Who gives us breath,
not from the breath of another person.

Last ones in line (still don't know how that happened), a little women
takes us to kiosk and looks up flights, geographic and calendar radius
varies as she explores the eroded options. She lends us her phone, and
we can talk to our waiting ride. All we can do in this moment is wait,
and praise. Worry melted long ago . . . I can't know just why, except
that we settle in the love and reality of the One Who charted this
course for us, the only One Who can get us through. And sometimes, the
journey doesn't take you anywhere. You wait, and sit, and grow on the
inside, so you will have strength to walk the next leg.

Supervisors come to check progress. He finds a flight for the next
morning. He upgrades us to first class and puts us on it. I scream and
dance for joy, not caring that I look ridiculous. We give the
attendants chocolate, and carry our familiar bags to the curb, to wait
for the hotel shuttle bus.

We stand in the cold, make small talk, muse happy for the bed and
shower and breakfast waiting for us. We watch bus after van pull along
the curb, but none of them belong to our hotel. We wander along the
road, stopping by a bench where a pair of glasses sit forgotten,
intertwined in the rails. And how often, in the wait, do we lose
perspective? How often do we forget that there is good for us, because
God is good?  

How often do we live a lie, as though we are victims and
demi-gods and the world must revolve around us? Finally, we call,
grateful for the travelling American who uses her minutes for us. We
must wait again: 45 minutes till another shuttle comes.

We go inside to thaw and wait. I try to journal, but thoughts jumble
incoherent, so I just rest. And the shuttle comes. And we drive warm
and safe to our hotel. And we shower and sleep four hours and have
breakfast. We drive back early, proceed to the front of the line as
first class passengers, and wait.

Another delay. We go for coffee, spend our vouchers on gifts for
friends, and sit with the Word, our true meal. We are happy, even if
we can't know why. Eventually, we sit at the gate, we board the plane,
we gate check our bags. We settle, and smile, and everything seems
more wonderful than we could have imagined. Because we waited for it.

And sometimes, God lets us wait for Him, so that we can know He is
good, and we can enjoy Him more . . . in the journey, collecting the
treasures of wait.

Sunday’s Journey

Sunday’s Journey

Sometimes, the extraordinary comes wrapped in silence and hoarfrost. 

Fog the night before—and often it is foggy before spledour bursts—and more fog in the morning, but there was light to see, so I venture out. And the fog blesses every branch and blade with thickly delicate frost. Laden heavy with weightlessness, boughs linger gleeful for morning sun. But this moment is for me, for me to share with waiting creation. I run in the silence, the hush of this moment, and am gentled into glory. No camera, no way of documenting it, I must instead labour, to associate, to think deeper; and I must remember.

Round the lake in whispers, my breathing the only wind, my strides the only motor, I join the silent song, and let my mind grow quiet; content to praise and pant and know I am alive.

The old graveyard rests peaceful just off the path. And today I can live spontaneously, because today is a gift, so I travel up, and run along the fence, my feet leaving prints in the whitened grass. I look for his resting place, where we laid his body sixteen years ago. I’ve never visited Papa’s grave in all that time. But today is the day to live, and remember, and live deeper for the recollection. 

I find his stone by his parents’ graves. The wheat heads and wild roses etched deep and simple into granite, the plain script and humble angle—these tell his story. He worked the land his whole life, saw the shift of industry, watched the world change around him, and still he plowed and harvested. Tilling came as a curse to Adam, yet it has turned to blessing, because there Papa found his identity, and his God. And he lost nothing for bowing his head in humility, and braving death’s scythe. He gained, and we his children reap the harvest he cultivated.  

I kneel and brush a granite chip off the slab. And even our firmest edifices fade and erode, and the only things that last forever are the things we can’t see or handle. A seed in husk nestles in the etched letters. I brush it out and let it fall to the ground. And if it dies to itself, it will bear much fruit—it will not be utterly alone. How strange the paradox of grace.

I lift my hand from the stone. The moist, warm imprint echoes like a shadow: dark, yet fading. And our warmth is a shadow, a brief touch, a fragile breath. And it tells us there is better air we have not breathed, vistas we have not reached, a whole world we have not known . . . a world we were made for.

Fog recedes as sun rises. Mists lift like organza plumes. The very earth seems to exhale its first fresh breath, sighing chiffon vapours to the heavens. And I breathe, heart slowed, soul stilled. I breathe to heaven in this place, and remember that I am a breath, and Heaven gives me life, and I labour with joy to breathe its air, as the fog lifts, and the thin veil shivers and fades. 

  

This is hope, wrapped in hoarfrost.

To Papa's school

Today, he would have been eighty-four. And I wonder how life would be different if he were here. For sixteen years, we have remembered his life. His weaknesses and failures instruct us, his strengths inspire us, his legacy colours our plans for the future and our enjoyment of now. 

So I walk down the road to his school. Sun blushes golden and dogs leap ahead through the harvested fields. I love this school. I come here when I need to think, when I need to listen, when I’m aching and broken inside and the voices clamour or the silence taunts me to despair. Sometimes, words come, audible to my spirit from the One Who made me. Sometimes, the silence says more.

Today, I sit in the door, on that support beam they added when schoolhouse turned to granary. Windows long ago boarded up, the pot-bellied stove crumbling to imperceptible rusted particles outside, the teacher’s house drug to nearby slough, where it waits in deadened silence. 

I wonder what the school was like when he came. The wall still tells where the coats hooks mounted. That beautiful yellow door looks down like a guardian angel. Someday, I’d like to take it home, to remind me that only a door separates me from the life of eternity, and the sound from heaven travels through wood and dust. 

Round the back, paint vanished, the etchings of once-little people still linger. His little sister carved her initials, along with three others, only known to those who love them and love their stories. And life is an etching—she’s gone too, a generation slipping into silence, their marks deep, though faded; signs for another group of children to read. 

And these husks, echoing the stories of lives gone by; the remaining shells: their independent beauty engulfed by the significance of those who once sojourned there. They represent, call to remembrance, beckon the heart back to the old paths, and into the simple beauty still possible now.

The wind whistles low and soothing. Once, he drove the wagon to school, his sisters in tow; the only boy, the dutiful son. Now his sons and grandsons drive tractor and cart and combine through fields, happy heirs of an honest legacy, inheritors of the working man’s ethic and physique.

His sisters were cheerful, tiny women, making happy homes and secure children. Now, his granddaughters nestle little ones close, and make their nests resourceful havens, and wonder what nicknames he would have given the great grandchildren.

Some etchings lay forgotten, and some construct the next generation’s dwellings. It’s a makeshift lean-to, a nest to build and fill and empty, because we are earth nomads, after all. And beside the grayed scribbles of forefathers, we etch our names, we too were here, and it matters.

The wind moans, stirring dust, our haunting shells, reminding us that we are made for more, and we live this mystery of life leading to more life, the echo of the song our Maker sings over us.

In loving memory of Papa Collin