Running….

MOLESKINE:  

Two months into our journey we realized we were running.  Running to capture memories of our parents before they faded, to “save the day” getting medical help for an aunt, to celebrate a new marriage.  We were running away from the heat, the mosquitoes, the miles of barren prairie, the altitude, the record-breaking heat, the RV park (which is really just a parking lot), the smoke.  We were running to being remote, to silence, to be with God and nature in order to feel His presence and hear His still small powerful voice. 

 

What we realized was we weren’t always running to things.  We were also running from things as well.  We were running from fears (founded and unfounded), from stories long buried to be dug up like a bad time capsule, from family neediness and uncertainty, from control and from being powerless in it all.

 

We had come out of the wilderness, literally, leaving the Washaki Wilderness area in Wyoming, due to altitude sickness.  Coming off the mountain Your Humble Correspondent was ready to drive through the night to Colorado to have my M possibly see someone that she had done some online doctoral courses with.  Pause here for a moment…in my last two Backblasts a thread that wove its way through was being present.  To my credit, this time, I was very present to my M.  However, if you know your geography, Colorado, by and large, sits higher in elevation than Wyoming.  So my ready-fire-aim plan to get her help may have worsened the altitude sickness had we gone with plan #1.  I was running out of fear while thinking I was being courageous. 

A rough definition of Courage is:  being afraid and still moving forward.  Nothing in that definition says anything about being smart.  Most of us will do just about anything for our loved ones, especially our M’s when the defecation hits the oscillation.

 

We got to Boise Idaho where my M was able to find treatment and get back to a sense of normal and then the smoke from the Oregon fires rolled in.  The air quality index (AQI) went from good to like the scene in Fatal Instinct when Lola was exhaling. The smoke was so bad you couldn’t see a quarter mile, and that was a maybe. 

So we started ‘running’ again. Up highway 95 to Idaho highway 12 and through some of the most beautiful landscape we had been exposed to.  And yet the smoke kept bellowing up and over the mountains.  We pressed on leaving behind, for the time, the nature we both thought would provide the healing balm we so desperately wanted.  Over the LoLo pass in Montana and descending into Missoula to meet a lifelong friend of my M’s.  We weren’t supposed to be there for another week and yet Dawnette flung open the doors and ran out to meet us as if the prodigal son, err daughter, had returned.  While the smoke still hung in the air like a blanket it was no longer smothering our souls.

 

YHC was planning how to thwart mother nature to ensure my M could breathe easy again.  We could drive west through the smoke or maybe north and then west, maybe south then west…  

That’s when I “figured it out.”  As we sat in our trailer, just having finished breakfast and looking out onto the street in front of Dawnette’s home and a smokey morning. I realized I was still running. 

 

“It’ll be better when…”.

“If we can get to…”.

“If it would just…”. 

 

Running from. Running to. I was still running.

I wasn’t seeing the beauty of “The X” beneath my feet.  I was still trying to control the uncontrollable.  I realized…I was powerless.  And that’s a pretty s***** feeling.  Oh sure, I could drive around, through, over and get to somewhere less smokey. But what awaited me there? A plague of F’ing locusts?  

 

Powerlessness. 

Uncomfortable. 

Restfulness. 

 

“What?” Yes, restfulness. Resting into the hands of the Lord and thinking and coming to a place where I could thank Him for these opportunities of growth. And yes, many of these trials and tests suck.  Notice that nowhere in this story have I mentioned my resignation, or quitting or that this is all just too much for me.  Through his grace and walking beside my M I can get through anything.

 

So what if I can’t see the majesty and grandeur of the mountains right now. Maybe He is forcing me to refocus on things closer, smaller…yet still majestic.  

 

For today, I can see that it’s hard to run to and from, when you’re looking at the beauty of “The X” under my feet.  I left North Carolina to meet God up and close in nature.  I didn’t need to leave – He was there.  I needed to not focus up and out, but down and in.  There is the true beauty – Inside.

 

We will continue to run the race, and will probably have to remind one another that race should be less from earthly things and more towards .

What is it you are running from…or towards?

 

Aye!

 

P.S. 2 1/2 years since the beginning of COVID and I had dodged it up to last night.  Down hard…let’s hope it’s a quick heal. (Just can’t make this stuff up)