Roads and Pathways



The Road up to Yankee Boy Basin

 I find myself fascinated with roads and paths. I take many pictures of them.  Sometimes the view is of the road or path ahead; sometimes the one already traveled.  I'm wondering today, "What is this fascination?  Is it the adventure of the unknown ahead - sort of like the anticipation of the unopened packages under the Christmas tree?  Is it the accomplishment of arriving at a certain point in a journey and wanting to reflect and remember the way I have come?  Is it just the beauty of the path snaking through the scenery: the artistry of it, the aesthetic mood created, that I want to hold on to?  Or is it the metaphor of life's journey that captures me?" 

This picture looks back down the road up which we had just come, a four-wheel drive road from Ouray, Colorado, to a magical place in the high mountains called Yankee Boy Basin.  We journeyed with friends in their vehicle.  The way was spectacular, winding with many switch backs and precipitous drop offs into the canyon and creek below; very rough and bumpy at points.  When it opened up into the high meadows of the Basin and we saw the amazing views and beautiful wildflowers, we delighted in our choice to take this journey.  We certainly felt a sense of accomplishment and received a wonderful gift for our effort.   Out of travail comes inexplicable joy!

At the moment that I take these pictures, I'm captured by the aesthetic of the place and want to capture it, hold on to it.  When I review the photos, the remembering of journey and place is called forth.  But also, I think of the anticipation of what lies ahead.  In the remembering, I know that both joys and struggles, adventure and sorrow, effort and gift were part of the path and, despite and because of them, I made it here.  Adventure lies ahead along with joy, sorrow, loss, beautiful places and wonderful experiences.  Because I have made it here, I know I can make it along the paths ahead.  In all this, I have learned that nothing can separate me from the love of God and that she has always been, is currently and will be always be with me through the ups and downs, twists and turns of the road.  I've also learned that there is no wrong path - God is along all of them and there is something to learn, someone to meet, an interesting or amazing place to see even when it seems to be a wrong turn.  And just maybe the turn that seemed wrong, was really made at the Spirit's nudge.  Wouldn't that be amazing to keep in mind when I'm totally annoyed with my husband for missing the exit or making the incorrect turn?

So did I answer my question?  I guess I just like the look of the winding road amidst the scenery of the surrounding area.  But there seems, indeed, to be, in my fascination, something deeper which offers invaluable lessons.

Enjoy the beauty of your particular pathways this day.

And let me know how roads and paths resonate with you! 

COMMUNITY, Part II

In my last post, I leaned heavily into the community I have found in the Episcopal Church.  However, I know that a similar sense of belonging is found in other places as well. 

Other denominations must offer some of the same feelings of cohesion across individual churches and geographic boundaries.  I receive bulletins from the United Church of Christ that supports such fellowship among UCCers.  My Quaker friends describe similar experiences. 

 I recently heard an amazing and beautiful story:  A young family – mother, father, and infant daughter (parents Russian-born but living in China, the daughter born in China) knew they needed to flee ahead of the invading Japanese.  While none spoke English (Russian and Chinese their languages), they chose to immigrate to Australia.  Their denominational connection was Baptist (not sure which branch but one that had roots in Russia and a presence in pre World War II China) sent out a world-wide newsletter regularly.  When this young family was to leave, the newsletter told of their journey.  It reached Australia and a group of church folk decided to meet every boat on which the family might be sailing.  The family was delayed because they had decided to stop off in Singapore on the way, and yet, the faithful group continued to meet every boat.  Finally, the family arrived and were overwhelmingly welcomed into their new community.  Can you imagine how that must have felt for this precious, displaced family as they arrived in a strange land!  The woman who told me this story, now a grandmother, was the infant daughter and still had tears in her eyes in the retelling and the rejoicing in God’s wonderful work through community.

While I believe that some of the best communities are those that are created in a spiritual context, deep feelings of connection happen in other settings as well.  I have found those in professional relationships, particularly with the folks I worked with for many years in a family service agency.  Additionally, particular avenues of post graduate work have led to several communities of which I feel a part.  One in particular has melded the professional and the spiritual to create a unique cohesion that is rich and deep.  This is the community built around sand tray work, which is both a clinical tool of healing and insight and also a way of deepening personal and communal spiritual growth, connection and bonding.  I have been richly blessed by this professional community.  It remains a virtual community as I travel.

Social Workers seek to support their clients in building healthy support systems.  Part of the work of a social work clinician is to assess the supports available to a client system, learn where it is broken or dysfunctional, where it is healthy and helpful; then strengthen the natural positive threads and help the client to build bridges of healing where possible or create new avenues leading to a strong and expanding web of support.  The profession even has a tool, called an ecogram, which plots these supports.  This tool, when drawn and completed, indeed looks much like a wonderful spider web with all parts interlinked and threads connecting back and forth and all around; or like a wheel with the spokes complete and strong. 

However we find community, both the church and my profession reflect on how incredibly essential and basic they are for health and contentment, for successful functioning. 

One of the joys of traveling has been the ability to experience a wide variety of ecosystems.  When I first wrote this we were in the Mojave Desert.  From the interstate, it looks dry and barren except for the scattered cactus and other desert plants, some of which look as dried up and dead as the desert floor.  But get off the highway onto a back road; walk a bit into the desert and it comes alive.  We see cactus flowers, lizards, a bevy of desert quail, a small spring-fed stream, coyote tracks.  They are all interconnected, a desert community, precious and spectacular and vulnerable.  A community that must be preserved.    

Let’s all embrace, expand and preserve our own precious networks!

View from the Coach Window: Community

I wrote the following on Monday, February 14:

Today is Valentine's Day and, as such, it seems a good time to speak of community, something I've wanted to address for some time.  I have lived in community with my Valentine for nearly 47 years.  We have reached the point where the outward expressions of Valentine's Day are not necessary to be reassured of each other's love and commitment.  We took a long walk together through a  beautiful natural area near where we are in San Diego.  This was our Valentine to each other.  The day was sunny and warm and we saw new growth and blossom, the San Diego spring appearing.  Community with one another and with the presence of God in creation.  What could be better?

Shortly before we started off on our adventure last summer, a good friend said to me:  "But won't you miss your community here?"  Well, yes, I do, but not in a way that keeps me from embracing the journey and where I am presently.  For, you see, we have discovered community every place we have traveled, which goes to show that if you have experienced community, know how to be in community and seek signs of community,  you will find community. 

The Episcopal Church, our demonimation, is one of the key elements in establishing connections as we travel.  That this is a liturgical, sacramentally focused denomination whose individual churches are all connected to one another through the use of a common liturgy and prayer book in no small measure helps to make this possible.  It is such a joyful thing to know that we can go into any Episcopal congregation and know the flow of the worship, easily settle into the liturgy and know that the scriptures we hear are the same ones heard in every congregation across the U.S., including our home parishes.  That in and of itself creates a sense of community and communion.

The church has provided a welcoming presence.  The promise that  "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" has been fulfilled in both small and large congregations across ten states.  Several stand out:

• The small group of fifteen faithful folks at Holy Trinity in Wallace, Idaho, the last Episcopal Church in the Silver Valley, where worship was in the undercroft and where, because we had called the day before to find out the time of worship, places had been saved for us around the table and welcoming waves greeted us as we entered even though the service had already begun (we had to drive a number of miles from Montana where we had stayed the night, to reach the church). 
• The small church in Chehalis, Wa., St. Timothy's, whose members embraced us when our coach broke down and we were "stuck" there for two weeks while it was being repaired.  They reached out with love, inviting us into their lives and activities, and sent us on our way with gifts, tangible and intangible, for which we will be ever greatful.
• The great Cathedral in San Francisco where a lovely gentleman spent time with us before the service helping us to feel welcome.
• The old downtown parish in Rapid City, SD, where we discovered shared acquaintances with the retired priest associate; and where the rector's wife gave me yarn to begin knitting a prayer shawl, answering a quiet prayer of mine.  The smaller parish in the same city, where the joy of the worship permeated the welcome we received and visibly intermingled among congregants.
• The shared ministry parish in Willets, California, whose people celebrated and shared their various gifts of art, music and friendship.
• St. Dunstan's, San Diego, and the warmth of renewed friendship with a fellow clergy couple from Michigan now ministering here.

In all of these and others, we have found community and I thank God for each of them. These are all reasons I love the Episcopal Church and I would invite anyone interested in learning about more reasons folks love this denomination to check out the "People Who Are Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church" group site on Facebook or visit the closest Episcopal Church..

But we've also begun to discover community in the RVing world, too.  It seems RVers love to connect around where they have been and where they are going, and are every ready to offer support and direction.  We enjoyed getting to know lovely neighbors in the site next to us here in San Diego and we've shared dog stories across the country.  Our dog, Sandy, has made many friends, too, especially if the other dog is also a "doodle"--golden or lab.

And I can't fail to mention the wonderful online community of family, colleagues, friends from home and friends along the way.  What an amazing thing the internet and social networking is!

So, my friends, community is there.  It is here.  We continue to seek and find it and I hope that you do, too.  It is something that is incredibly wonderful and incredibly necessary.  And I am so eternally greatful for all my communities. 

And that was the view from the coach on Valentine's Day.