The Things We Miss --- Inktober 15 #guidebook

 

My husband and I love to explore our favorite trails, over and over, where cathedrals of trees rise up around us, and rushing creeks sing endless ancient choruses. But even on those familiar trails, something new always emerges, the seniority of an old growth tree towering overhead, or suddenly, the sun's rays slicing through the thick canopy like a prophetic vision of God.  And we return to civilization with a story or two, and sometimes the resounding silence of the woods even follows us inside.

A few years ago, we hiked a trail we did not know, realizing that the beginning of a familiar trail is in hiking a new one. Our now-preferred routes were once strangers too.

This trail was on our way to see some herds of elk, gathering at Cataloochee for a little autumn party. A little side hike was a welcome break after navigating fifteen miles of potholes on a lonely gravel road. 

The carved wooden sign at the trail head stated in bold print:  Mount Sterling Trail 2.3 miles, a morning's journey, not daunting at all. Another trail would intersect in a half mile.  All I knew from my limited experience was that when the trail name includes the word "mount," count on it being steep.

Immediately, the path started upward. We were on our way.  "Do I need a heavier long sleeve shirt?"  I asked Bill, as I shivered in the early morning coolness.  "Not likely," he said. I was still skeptical.

In the first quarter mile of the ascent, I was down to a tank top.

When we reached the other trail branching off, the sign repeated:  Mount Sterling Trail 2.3 miles.  The same as a half mile ago.  Hmmmm. Not what our map said.  What else don't we know?

The path became even steeper.  Sometimes a little ignorance is a grace, I justified. But the truth was  we hadn't read the guide book.  We hadn't asked anyone about it.  We didn't know the "story" about this trail. It was another mile longer than expected, not unbearably steep, but it was a continuous climb. Each switchback vaguely promised a break, but as we climbed and approached yet another turn, the path was relentless.  It will flatten out at the next bend, I lied to myself   But no rest area was to be found.

Just keep on, I said to myself. Think about the view from the top!  That is always worth it. The rocks and the roots threatened to trip me on every step, but gradually I began to see them as footholds, at times almost like steps carved into the side of the mountain. 

We came around yet another bend, and quite suddenly, that was it, the end of the trail.  We looked around us, and then, at each other.  There was no view.  There was nothing but some scrub trees and another trail sign that pointed down the mountain in two opposite directions.

A mountaintop experience without a view?  We climbed all this way, and there was nothing here.  "I can see why this is not a popular trail," I said to Bill.

"Well, it was a nice hike on a beautiful day," he said.  And indeed it was, view or not.

On the way down, back to the car, we passed quite a few hikers on the way up.  "Should I tell them there is nothing there?" I whispered to myself.  They looked so excited.  I hated to discourage them.

And of course, as we hiked down, my mind began to find a story in this journey.  Don't climb for just a view.  There may be some other purpose in it.  It may just be about the conversation, the being together, the just getting out and trying new paths in life.

That could have been the tale on this hike, the purpose for this trek.  But I should know better than to guess how the story turns out when I'm still in the middle of a saga.

A young high schooler was coming up the trail towards us, keeping quite a pace as she ascended.  She obviously didn't know about how her hike was going to end.  About twenty yards behind her was a man with two teenage boys, evidently her father and brothers.  As we passed them, the father asked us excitedly, "Was it so amazing at the top?"

Ummmm.  "Well," Bill said.  "There really wasn't anything there."

"Isn't this the Mt. Sterling Trail?"  Yes.

"There is an historic 60-foot fire tower at the top," the man said with great anticipation in his voice, sweeping his arm upward, "the tallest fire tower east of the Mississippi."  Like, didn't you see it? They proceeded in their excitement upward and onward.

We shook our heads. There was nothing there.  Boy, are they going to be disappointed.

But later,we discovered that indeed there is a 60-foot historic tower, standing tall less than a quarter mile from where we lingered at the top. If it had been alive, it would have bopped us on the head.  If we had read the guidebook, if we had explored the summit even a few dozen yards, if we had even looked up, we would have had a much different experience.  No doubt about it.  We missed out.



There was more than a view at the top, but a panorama. God designs the awe.  I can look at the images on my computer screen, but that is nothing compared to what is real.  We missed out on the poetic view.  We missed out on the wonder.


It was a gentle reminder that there is an incredibly strong connection between what I know and what I see, what I read and discover in God's Word, what I pray, and what I end up doing that day.  Over and over, Scripture profoundly influences my vision and orders my day-- what I see around me, who I notice, how I respond, and Who I'm walking with.  It matters.  It matters a lot.  Read the Guidebook.

What else don't I know?  That which God has placed right before me. 

God's faithfulness helps me know that the wilderness is a place of flourishing, not despair.  Silence is a place of His fathomless Presence, not His absence.  And that reality takes my breath away.

Same trail, different outcome. Ordinary day, extraordinary day.  His Word does not just influence my expectations, but helps me watch for the unexpected that God Almighty always brings.

Thus says the LORD:
"Stand by the roads,
             and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is,
and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls."

                  Jeremiah 6. 16

Oh, Give Me A Home Where The Children Roam --Inktober 14 #roam

 When I was a little girl, children played outside most of the day.  We walked to school through snowdrifts and rain.  We traveled in packs like wolf cubs roaming throughout the neighborhood.  And while this was a time before cell phones, texting, and surveillance cameras, an even more powerful communication system was set on alert, an unofficial pact among neighbors that held us accountable and responsible for our actions.  The backup system was generated by the ever-present tattling prevalent among multiple siblings.  There were no secrets back then.

As a middle child, I was never alone, one brother older, another right under me, and my baby brother safe at home with my grandmother who resided with us.  The neighborhood kids all had traveling routes, roaming through the backyards of our block, sometimes even on our bikes, knowing the weak links in the fences and where the mean dogs waited in the shadows. 

There was an enormous rock at the end of our street, a boulder that I can clearly remember climbing and falling off, sometimes imagining riding a horse or scaling a mountain, depending on what I was pretending at the time with my brothers or my friends.  It was huge. My schoolgirl knees were continually scraped. When I was not even ten years old, my family moved from that yellow brick house, but the memory of that rock grew legendary in my thoughts.

As an adult, I finally had the opportunity to visit the old neighborhood again.  Our block looked so plain as if the color had been drained from an old photograph. The mammoth arch of elm trees had been felled by Dutch elm disease decades ago.  The small brick and clapboard houses had aged and were filled with strangers.  It felt like the stories of my childhood had been evicted.  I did not see even one boy or girl playing on the sidewalk, let along a swarm of kids among the ancient trees and overgrown shrubs, scampering between houses, building forts and hideouts, and roaming through our childhoods before the streetlights came on. Our blue jeans may have grown too short, but never our imaginations.

And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.  Zechariah 8. 5

And the boulder?  Where was it?  I drove past twice before I realized that what I remembered as massive and insurmountable was only a colossal figment of my imagination.  It appeared ridiculous.  I was enamored by a rock not even two feet high. 

Wherever You Go, There You Are --- Inktober 13 #horizon

 I am mesmerized by sunrises and sunsets, the spectacular bookends of the day.  When we are camping or taking a long road trip, I stay attentive as the sun creeps closer and closer to the horizon, the point when the earth meets the sky. Each moment reveals even more beauty than the moment before.

The horizon is also the point just outside our field of vision, beyond what we know and have experienced yet.  And that is where faith fits in.  Trusting God is going toward what or where we cannot yet see, the cusp of what was, and is, and is to be.  Wherever we go, there we are.

It is not for us to just gaze at the horizon from where we are right now and hope that things will work out (future tense with a smiley face).  But knowing God is already working all things out, past, present and way out there.

Because when we are walking with God, we stand right now where was once the horizon.  His glory extends on both sides, before and behind, His faithfulness visible even to the naked eye.

As we navigate through this present moment, God is preparing us for that horizon where He is bringing us, beckoning us to come, sowing His Word, and being faithful even on this little patch of ground beneath our feet.  Even in this desert place, this miry bog, these unrelenting hills.

And what we discover along the way is that God is not far off after all.  Wherever we are, there He is. 

 

...as we look not to the things that are seen

but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient,

but the things that are unseen are eternal.

                  2 Corinthians 4. 18

In A Galaxy Far, Far Away....Or Not ---Inktober 12 #remote

When I was working for a homebuilders' magazine way back in the late 1970s, I had an hour and a half commute each way from my apartment in the suburbs to my office cubicle in downtown Chicago. I walked a mile to the bus stop, rode the bus, caught the train, and then trekked another mile across town to the office.

I wrote most of the day not on a screen, but paper scrolled into an electric typewriter.  And then, at the end of the day, I slipped back into my walking shoes (or boots) and reversed my course.

One day I asked my boss, if I could work at home a day or two a week, to get the copy done.  "You want to do what?" he asked incredulously. "In what galaxy do you think people would work from home?"

Needless to say, the term remote working would not enter our vocabulary for many decades later.  I continued to commute.

And then, everything changed radically.  We moved from Chicago to small town Jackson, Tennessee in the early '80s.  The magazine still needed me to write on assignment. And we discovered not if I could write from home, but how.  Federal Express was in its infancy.  As long as I got my floppy disk to the small airport by 8 pm, Fed Ex would deliver my copy to the office by 10 am the next morning.  Imagine that!  And then another decade down the road, the internet anchored my freelancing while we raised four daughters, in several more remote locations.

Remote working, remote learning, TV remotes (no, we didn't have one of those either), and now since covid, even remote tele-doctor appointments.

But there is one thing not remote, never has been, and never will be.

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.  It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?"  Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?"  But the Word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.     Deuteronomy  30. 11-14

God is not remote.  He has given us His Word on that.

A Moveable Feast ---Inktober 11 #snacks

One of our daughters, now a mom to four active kids, typically carries with her a large purse or canvas bag.  And when any need comes to the surface, she becomes like Melanie Parker, the ingenious mom played by Michelle Pfieffer in the 1996 movie One Fine Day.

In the movie, out of her purse emerges the unexpected and outrageous, just in the nick of time, exactly what is needed at the very moment.  I mean, don't all of us carry around a full child-size rain suit in our handbags?

At a recent soccer game for her eight year old on a sweltering weekend afternoon, our daughter handed out umbrellas which she had packed just in case there wasn't any shade --which there wasn't.

And then, as if on signal, she pulled out the snacks.  Not the ordinary tiny bags of chips, but deep down in that tote of hers, among other delights, she pulled out freezer pops -- still mostly frozen. And then later, thirsty?  She responds, not just "do you want a Gatorade?"  But what flavor?  Protein bar?  What brand?

She is the master of snacks.  Never leaves home without them, sustaining others in unexpected ways, not just ready to bless those around her, dissolving the grumbling mutiny, but equipped to do so, not out of the blue, but out of the deep from that satchel of surprises.

God may take us through the wilderness, but He always brings the snacks.

His faithfulness is our source of strength. Sometimes physically in the form of a strategically placed umbrella or manna.  Sometimes through a verse that speaks right to our hearts.  Sometimes a kind word, or grace in unexpected places, or a proverbial piece of really good chocolate on a long and lonely trail.

...by the God of your father who will help you,

by the Almighty who will bless you

with blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that crouches beneath...

                        Genesis 49. 25

On The Road Again -- Inktober 10 #nomadic

 
We moved a lot while our girls were growing up.  Our family was more like a nomadic tribe, transferring to a strange land for a few years and moving on to the next.  A friend once confided to me that I had totally messed up her address book with all our changes of residence.

My husband and I are now in our tenth location.  Many times I thought that surely this move or that would be the last. But God freed me from that myth a few moves ago.  My final destination is heaven. Anything in between, well, is just a rest area on the highway.

Years ago and just about every move between, God used a particular verse to change my heart and my mindset.

Not that I complain of want,
for I have learned,
in whatever state I am,
               to be content.

                 Philippians 4. 11

I chuckle, because written in the margin now some 40 years and nine moves ago, I had scribbled "even Tennessee."  At the time, I was a young lonely mom from Chicago with a two year old and a newborn in the Deep South in a house surrounded by cotton fields.  It was our first major move.  And I felt like a stranger in a foreign land.

Little did I know, not just the hardships yet to come, but the extreme joys, the deepening of our lives in Christ, over all those many moves and all those new places.  God taught me quite literally "in whatever state I am," to learn His secret of contentment.

Because whether it was Tennessee or Illinois or Ohio or Kansas or Iowa, I could dwell in Him.  He has strategically appointed me in that exact house, that particular block, that specific neighborhood, that city for deeper purposes than I will ever know, for His glory.

...the place where the LORD will choose, to make His name dwell there.  Deuteronomy 16.2 

And through the years with each bend in the road and huge changes, God brought me to observe that I have seen too much to question God in this.

The amusing part of "even Tennessee" is that's where we live now, our third location in that same state.

Contentment is not a secret joy,
      nor dependent on situation or location.
It is a learned state of heart
    that not just prevails over circumstances
but flourishes in them.

God's deliverance may not be in plucking us out of a difficult spot in life, but engraving His joy into our hearts in whatever state we are.

When I look back
on all those places now,
    there is not one
    that I would have wanted to miss.

In Case We Aren't Looking---- Inktober 9 #sun

 One of our daughters was out running this morning

 and witnessed the glory of God.

The sunrise is God's daily reminder 

that no matter what is ahead in this day, 

and every day,

     "I'm here and walking with you through it."

Every morning, every evening, the bookends of our days

reveal our Redeemer.

The Mighty One, God the LORD,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun

to its setting.

Out of the perfection of beauty,

God shines forth.

                         Psalm 50. 1-2

 Trusting God is not just a worldview,

        but a way of seeing reality

that changes the course of our days

    and radically alters our journeys in life.

How we see God impacts 

    how we love others,

how we respond to circumstances,

    and how we see ourselves.

As author C. S. Lewis notes:  "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen:  not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."    

We take for granted 

that every morning sneaks in

 with the spectacular,

and we have forgotten

                to celebrate.

Our lives should be marked

by His light and hope

that cannot be extinguished. 

There are no ordinary days

on God's calendar

without His glory 

all over us.

Hike Like A Three Year Old -- Inktober 8 #hike

God invented hiking so that we would not miss the wonders of His creation, a truth I have learned about hiking from our grandchildren.  They do not allow the end point, or pace, or mileage distract them from what is out there.  Every step -- even at a painfully slow pace -- is an adventure and sacred time of discovery.

Hike like a three year old.  Wow!  Look at that!  

How in the world did Drew see the tiny bug, or Rose spot a bear cub way up in that tree that I blindly passed, or Lu observe that interesting crawdad in the creek?  Because they are looking expectantly.  In an impenetrable forest or seemingly endless desert, God reveals Himself in a milliondy ways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A worldview is not just a philosophical stance, but how we see the world.  God makes Himself known in the grandeur of the mountains, but also in that tiny millipede in the city park. And a child's delight in Look at this, Mom!

A trail always leads somewhere, even if it is right back where we started.  But we cannot help but be changed by the experience, what we see, what we do, how we respond. 

The point is not just where we are heading, but how we get there?  What is embedded along the way that makes the best discoveries and even better stories?  On the side of the trail. Or right beneath our feet.  Sometimes the end point becomes only an afterthought.  Looking back on it as adults, the children may remember a praying mantis and totally forget that thunderous waterfall.

Are we so focused on the destination that we miss where we are in this moment, the wonders beneath our feet, or the view from the ridge that we have no words to describe?

Just a few weeks ago, 31 year old Tara Dower broke both the men's and women's record for hiking the 2189 miles of the Appalachian Trail.  She completed the hike in an incredible 40 days, 18 hours, and five minutes, raising the bar and establishing a new Fastest Known Time, averaging a blistering 54 miles a day on this rugged terrain.   Most hikers take at least five to seven month to tackle that daunting trail that stretches from southern Georgia to northern Maine, not for the faint of heart.

She achieved her respectable goal.  But what did she miss along the way?

And do we hike through our days like that and totally miss the point?  It's not a competition but a walk with God, step by step through His faithfulness, seeing God differently, ourselves, others and our circumstances.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1. 17

May we say out loud, I never saw that before, even right in our own backyard. No day nor trail is just an ordinary one, nothing inconsequential in His creation.

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.  (last few sentences from Wendell Berry's poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front)

Go differently into this day.

Hike like a three year old.

Oh, The Places You'll Go Inktober 7 #passport

 In the iconic 1995 movie While You Were Sleeping, main character Lucy Moderatz sits day by day in her little booth accepting elevated train tokens on a cold Chicago platform.  At night, she returns to a tiny apartment she shares with her cat.  To endure the bitter cold, she wears an enormous wool coat that belonged to her late father.

And in the coat pocket, she always carried her passport for when she might need to go somewhere like Italy at a moment's notice, a passport without anything stamped in it, just waiting for a someday.

A passport does not take us anywhere but is a document that reveals who we are and where we belong.

Because our citizenship is in heaven...(Philippians 3. 20), we can go differently into the day and into the fray.  God invites us to "Follow Me."  Even into these hours right ahead of us, may we ask Him to order our day, guide our steps, direct our thoughts, and align our hearts with His.

It is not just where we go, but how we live right where God has landed us.  Like Lucy, we hold onto that passport instead of responding to it.  In God's eyes, there is no distinction  between the familiar and the foreign, secular and the sacred, acquaintance and stranger, but imprinted only in what is faithful.

Jesus gives us more than a passport to see places, but a mandate to "Go into all the world," loving people to Him,  Wherever, however, whatever, and among whomever.  Not just someday, but this day.

As Dr. Seuss points out, "Oh, the places you'll go." 

Where would that be?  Be found in Him. (Philippians 3.9)

Daily Trek Inktober 6 #trek

When we lived in Chicago, the pathway of my morning trek was a familiar one by design.  I ran it enough that I knew-- without nary a thought --when to turn, when to switch to the sidewalk, the best place to cross the train tracks, and when I reached the point of “heading back home.”  

Of course, this familiarity came in handy in my early morning mental fog, before my morning cup of coffee kicked in.  Or when I was deep in thought, praying through the day or for friends who are struggling, or simply writing in my head.  It was like an organic internal GPS.  A voice does not tell me where to turn – I just follow the path before me.

One place on that daily trek was an old railway line, converted back in the 1960s into a running/walking/cycling path.  On weekends, the trail was crowded with adults and kids on bicycles, moms and dads with jogging strollers, old friends conversing, and runners training singly or in pairs.  Weekday mornings, commuters rushed toward the train station and cyclists hurried to work, but for the most part, it was just a quiet sanctuary of trees to run through.  

One morning, fog was added to the mix, looking a bit mysterious as if out of a Jane Austen novel, a shady part sometimes a bit creepy on a foggy morning.  Once running on this section, looking for where the next street crosses at the train station, I thought:  What if I enter this path someday and the train station is not at the end?  What if I come out somewhere else…..or five years later in my life?  How will things be different?  How will I be different?

We are all trekking on paths designed by God for His Kingdom and for our good.  We cannot know what turns the paths will take or if indeed the expected train station will be at the end, but we can be assured of a few things:  God is with us to provide strength for the journey, wisdom to handle what we encounter on the way, grace to deal with those we meet, and His purposes manifest in our lives.  It will all make sense someday.  

Five years from now—or today – may not be what we planned, but it is firmly lodged in His plans.  We have only to run with Him through it.  And perhaps, be surprised at the next intersection where He has brought us.  We may have trekked further than we thought, or landed at a destination not even on our radar.

Because We Don't See So Good -- Inktober 5 #binoculars

Cades Cove is an 11-mile nature loop in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, known for abundant wildlife viewing.  It is rare that my husband and I don't see black bears, deer, wild turkeys, coyotes and other creatures in the wooded areas and meadows.

It is even more rare that we remember to bring our binoculars.  We just forget.

One time when we did remember, I was casually scanning a thicket on the other side of a field, trying to adjust the focus, not really expecting to see anything at all.  What appeared from a distance as a large lopsided tree was literally crawling with a mama bear and her cubs.

We observe a lot of wildlife on that loop, but how much more do we miss? Just because we don't see these wonders doesn't mean they aren't there.  The bears may be having a rollicking party just beyond our field of vision.  And yet we are taken back every time when one suddenly comes sauntering out of the forest.

God is here too.  Why are we surprised at His Presence?  How much more are we missing?

We see the dirt beneath our feet, an ordinary day ahead of us, a desert as far as we can see, and God says "Lift up your eyes."  God has a bigger vision in this vista, this difficult situation, the wildness of this place that we wouldn't believe if told.

What is that dark spot way out there on the horizon?  Not just a random clump of trees.  But full of life.

Bring the binoculars.  

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43. 19

 

What Is Not Like The Others? -- Inktober 4 #exotic

When we were first married a thousand years ago, I would pack a brown bag for my husband Bill to take for lunch at the manufacturing plant where he worked.  A couple sandwiches on store-bought bread, a piece of fruit, a cookie or two, if we had any.  Nothing special but a lunchbreak in the middle of the day.....until I started slipping in a hand-written poem, a Bible verse on a scrap of paper, or a piece of chocolate wrapped in aluminum foil at the bottom of the bag.  He never knew what to expect.  Once he was really surprised when I wrapped in foil, a tiny plastic gorilla we had found under our hot-water radiator.

According to my late father's dictionary published in 1931, I was bringing something exotic to Bill's meal, which the dictionary defined as "anything not native to a place."  It is those additional five letters of anything that turns the ordinary into the extra-ordinary.

What if our habits included a bit of spontaneity, something fun, out of the ordinary, a small kindness, or a smear of Nutella, perhaps, on a plain vanilla wafer?

It doesn't take much to adorn the unadorned.  Or to unfold the beauty God has woven in what is all around us, uncovering the exotic in unusual places and unexpected ways -- both inside and outside our normal bounds.

As our beloved Mr. Rogers used to sing, "What is not like the others?"  This is the day that the LORD has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118. 24   None like any other.  

When we see God differently, everything changes. May we see something exotic in this stretch of hours, plant something different in it, and get our hearts up and running to think and respond with a fresh perspective. 

God specializes in surprising us.  And He uses us to do exactly that for others, more often than not.

Author and house specialist Joanna Gaines practices and pursues what brings unusual treatments to homes and recipes, as simple as adding a can of green chilies to a casserole or swapping out throw pillows on the tired couch.  In her Magnolia Home cookbook, she describes one of her go-to's for an exotic touch:  homemade whipped cream.  Four simple ingredients in four minutes flat transforms the ordinary into something glamorous, the stale or store bought into a last minute special treat. She keeps whipping cream in her fridge as a tool in her toolbox for such a moment as this.  "It makes everything it touches better."

Thinking exotically makes us more aware of the creative mandate God has endowed us.  What am I doing with this little patch of time today?  Mundane does not appear in His dictionary.  But doing all things with a new heart does.

 

 

 

The Way We Walk --Inktober 3 #Boots

A few years ago, my husband and I returned from a long hiking trip, where day after day, we struggled with the steep ascents before us, one step after another.  Sometimes that is all any of us can do. Even now, back in real life.

This extended journey called for far more than I was capable, beyond what I could ever conceive, or attempt, or actually do, one step, one day at a time.  Every night when my feet ached and blisters throbbed, still speechless from what I had seen, dropping exhausted into bed, I knew very well that I could not stop, because simply of what I would miss.  Not one day, not even one hour gone, missing what could prove to be the most important, the most spectacular piece of a real life 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. There were passes through the mountains, passages trod from ancient times, vistas that were so majestic I wanted to stand and applaud, simply because I had no words.  And then, after another rough and rocky section of the trail for a couple more hours, we would emerge again from the dark forest or difficult paths into another dimension of impossible beauty.

One clear blue day, after a particularly rocky ascent, we rested by a clear glacial lake as if we were painted into a story.  It seemed almost irreverent to eat lunch in such a sacred space.

Each day became a deeply engraved memory, all significant moments, each piece, each catching of my breath as we traveled through the glory of God.  Before us, an overwhelming face of sheer rock would appear, the steepest of ascents I could ever imagine, and somehow in the face of the impossible, I would see just one doable toe hold, an intersection of broken rocks, a root, a crack, pulling myself up, before another emerges, trusting for the next.  Everyone struggles with something impossible.  We all do.   And  sometimes even more so traveling downward, looking for a tiny level spot, a spiky rock to keep me from sliding or falling.  I hiked in the same careful words of the ancient psalmist, a divine place for my steps, and my feet did not slip.

Don't look down.  Definitely don't trip now.

I had the wrong shoes to hike this far, but my boots had betrayed me.  And so, I dealt with what I had,  I got up every morning with aching feet and blisters hidden by big patches, raw places covered by adhesive and praying please God, heal my feet so that I can finish this strong, that I can finish what we have started.  I found respite in the laughter and conversation of strangers turning into friends, and following each other, one by one, those whose hiking boots I came to memorize, knowing their shoes, their crazy hiking socks, and their unfolding stories, bits of our lives floating like the clouds.  Even then, we knew full well these moments were fleeting, even with so many pictures taken in an effort to freeze our lives in this time and place, even with the awe of creation so thick we were often without words or limited by vocabularies in any language.  We were lost in the music, a song, a verse, a chorus still resounding through our dreams at night,  still walking in my sleep weeks later, beyond the frames of our photographs, the bigger picture still.

We returned home.  We could not but be changed by this, what we now know, what we have seen and felt and struggled through, what we still cannot grasp, a strength that is not our own, and boots left behind that no longer fit.

In Our Comings and Goings -- Inktober 2 #discover

My biggest creative moments rarely arrive when I am sitting at my desk, but when I am doing something else, mostly when I am doing something that bans any kind of creative action at that very moment.   Traveling 70 miles per hour on Interstate 40, I am bombarded by ideas, the revving up of my limited creativity, hardly the place to write, even to jot down a couple of words on any available scrap of paper.

But as soon as I arrive at my destination or back home and pull into the garage, as soon as I turn off the car, any prevailing thought or idea evaporates, like birds swiftly flying through the air and into the unknown. 

I sit down immediately to a blank screen.  An hour later, it is still staring back at me without words.  Doing something else appears to be the key to connecting the dots.

I wait these things out.  Those vanishing thoughts are not an end in themselves, but the beginning of yet, perhaps, another direction, another part of the story.  What has flown past once will return, what has caught my attention will take up residence in a different form.

What is significant, what bears tremendous purpose, what brings fruit, are not necessarily our intentional pursuits -- or on our radar-- but what we discover along the way of doing something else.  It is in our comings and goings, we find the deeper things.  They don't arrive on our doorstep, nor drop magically in our laps. We do not necessarily discover them in extraordinary circumstances, nor do they just sprint to us.  But it is in doing something else that we find them, even in the most familiar surroundings, often in the mundane, especially on the way looking for something else.

Call them as they are:  divine appointments, eternal encounters, the hand of God, the sacred connections and holy intersections and the clicking together of two seemingly unrelated things that only God can snap seamlessly into place.

Discovering is living expectantly even in the ordinary, which is never so ordinary at all.

...and the hand of the LORD
 was upon him there.

                          Ezekiel 1. 3

Right upon us here as well, right where we are, right in the midst of this, right under our feet. Not just a matter of discovery, but direction.  Do we recognize it?  God sings His faithfulness over us.

As Wendell Berry says in his iconic novel Jayber Crow, "...and times when, looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error.  But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led."

Several years ago, as my husband Bill retrieved a bag of potting soil from under the deck, he found not just the plastic sack of dirt he was looking for, but what he was not looking for.  The "lost" pole for our bird feeder was poking out from under the gravel, hidden in plain sight for five years, discovered when we were on the way to something else.  

We cannot take credit for discoveries.  God wakes us up to what is already there, waiting to emerge, waiting to be grasped and shared.  And sadly, we miss what we have left untried.

When we least expect it, as we are being faithful to Him in what we are doing, God brings an opportunity along our way, unexpected and in the most unlikely situations, sometimes even in the uncanny.  When we ask where did that come from?  God chuckles. And all these "unrelated" things that we have been doing and pursuing are just the training ground for what God has placed before us.  Just waiting to ripen. 

Just waiting to be discovered.

Inktober 1 Backpack

Inktober began in 2016 with 31 prompts to encourage daily creativity.  Originally designed for daily sketches, it now encompasses both visual and written art -- and for some, a combination of the two.  I have decided to jump into the challenge this October and utilize the daily prompts in my writing.  Some contributions will be much shorter than others.  Backpack is the first prompt.  Please feel free to join in the fun. www.inktober.com

My first contribution is a reprint of my nightlytea blog about backpacks entitled The Bulky, Scary, and Too Much to Carry.

 

Last year, it was my privilege to meet the school bus on Tuesday afternoons and greet four of our elementary-age grandchildren.  One of our then first-graders would always beg for me to carry his backpack home from the bus stop.  And every week, I took the backpack and replied, “What do you have in here?  Bricks?”

After snacks, I always asked about homework, and this little one would say, “I don’t think I have any.”

“Let’s take a look.”  I lifted his stuffed heavy backpack to the kitchen table and looked inside. One item at a time, layer by layer, I began spreading out the contents, the treasured collections of a curious little boy.   Crumpled worksheets already graded, his school-supplied Chromebook, a partially eaten lunch undated, an empty metal water bottle, several library books (“I was wondering where those were,” he chuckled), notices about past school events, a couple beloved small stuffed animals, a wrinkled t-shirt, dirty socks, his jacket that had been lost, and at the bottom, well, there was his new list of spelling words for the week and a practice sheet for subtraction. 

It was all spread out on the table.  The bulky, the scary, and the too much to carry.   

One of the ways the Old Testament talks about praying is spreading out our personal stuff before the LORD -- the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.  And Hezekiah prayed… Isaiah 37. 14-15

Like Hezekiah in the midst of panic-inducing turmoil, praying is our first response, not last resort.

Not laying before God our pre-conceived answers or carefully manipulated outcomes, but coming with hands spread out and open to receive what God lays before us.  Spreading out, clearing out, handing off our griefs, fears, and anxieties, and trusting Him instead. 

What does prayer have to do with all this?  Everything. A literal come-to-Jesus moment.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest….For My yoke is easy, and My burden in light.  Matthew 11. 28, 30

The tipping point, when we are so burdened and overwhelmed, is asking God for help, not shirking our responsibilities, but unloading twenty pounds of unnecessary rocks of anxiety in our backpacks that God never intended us to drag along in the first place.

We spread out before Him what appears as heavy baggage we have to carry, wounds still unhealed from the past, favorite grudges we just can’t let go, and even irritations, like pebbles in our shoes, the unseen, distracting, and the hurtful.  Spreading out allows God to reveal what is real and what is not, what is essential, and what is just toxic junk handicapping our hearts. 

When we pray and open up our hearts before God, the things that defeat us are not so insurmountable at all. Worries and frightful things are revealed to be as they are, imaginary dragons that occupy way too much brain space, clog up our emotions, take up a demanding residence for us to care for fulltime, and push us to our limits.

It’s easy to see what others need to deal with.  But we all have stuff in our heavy-laden backpacks that needs to be prayed through.  What do we need to spread out before the Lord?  The busy details of this overscheduled day, the accumulated layers of fears that weigh us down, and way-down deep in the bottom the fierce and overwhelming foes that we cannot even begin to face.  Let Me carry that for you.

When we spread out these things, we are not revealing anything new and mysterious to God.  He sees and knows already.  But spreading and praying out into the open where we can see them in the sunlight, we find them faded, broken and without any power over us.  When we spread them out, God always unfolds something new.