Happy Thanksgiving for Steeples

The PEIslanders are a neat and hardy people.  The potato harvest is being brought in, the fields are tidied and ready for a harsh winter, the dairy cows are being milked, and all the tourist shops are shuttered or will be on Saturday.  Monday is their official Thanksgiving, and so this is a long holiday weekend for most of them, a time for getting one's island in order and gathering to give thanks for all His Blessings.  

As is our habit and our good blessings, we found a church, St. Dunstan’s Cathedral Basilica, in Charlottetown.  It was easy to find, the steeple rising above all other things.  A steeple is such a kind act.  It was first created to be a beacon of hope to all those who were struggling in the Dark Ages of Europe.  Under it you could find help, food, lodging, safety, and unburden yourself.  It was truly the example of Christ’s teaching, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it unto me.’  I just happened to read this parable in my time with the Ancient of Days this morning.  

The steeple still serves that for me and mine.  We have been drawn into its hope-filled interior all over the world as we seek always to draw “Nearer my God to Thee” to revive our souls, worn thin on the good trails of this earth.  My lover and I lit a candle, knelt, and prayed our heart’s desire; she wept.  We rose and quietly left as pilgrims have been doing for all the ages: “There is a place of quiet rest.  Near to the heart of God.”   

      

 

Googolplex And More

Sitting in deep color, a wooded campsite on Prince Edward Island, dressed in fall’s fancy.  Colors have held true our whole visit.  You must not read this as some line off the cuff, some sentence that will do.  When I say color, I mean a divine thing, a most sacred event.  So many single leaves put to shame, and placed in context, all of the color field, abstractists, and even the impressionists' paintings of the last 150 years.  No human creative effort can compare, can match the colors that are true color, not those added to a canvas.  Color so extravagant, so exuberant, underscored by the fact that it will be tossed away, infinitely fluttering to earth to decay and nourish the same sacred act next year.  Try not to miss the sacredly divine as it waves past you by the googolplex.

A leaf I picked up on a hike the second day we were here.
The cup is by Megan Peden, a former student of 
mine.  I always travel with her cup.  

   

Tumbling Along

We will move toward home today even though we won’t turn directly south for three more days.  It was a long haul up here and a long one back, ending in a mad dash for the border to get us to our plane on time.  Canada has in many ways caught us off guard and made us pay.  I had closely followed the weather to make sure we packed appropriately, but I did not take into account the wind and “feels like.”  For instance, this morning when I got up, the temperature was 43°, but with the wind, which is strong, it “feels like” 27°.  That is a significant difference in how one might dress.  

However, we are both tumbleweeds, just easily go with the flow, and so we are now layering 4 and 5 layers to go out and have learned a good lesson.  

Had a good hike up Salmon Ponds Trail yesterday; it rained most of the late evening and night, and we are facing a six-hour trip to Prince Edward Island today.  We have a three-day camp there, setting us up for the two-day mad dash. Tumbling along.  Happy Trails.   

 

 

Shine On Kind Star, Shine On

We are neck-deep in Canada, and there’s no one here.  It seems all the Canadians have moved somewhere else, leaving behind rolling hills forested with stunted, brilliantly colored trees, a vastness of uninterrupted creation with no one to tend it.  We are tending to it, paying attention to Him who made it, acknowledging Him, thinking the world of Him for making it all. It has turned cold, 44° in our camp this morning. Nothing says comfort better than a rated 20° LL Bean sleeping cover and a warm lover beside me.  

We are in this kind of climate now: when the sun is out, you are warm, but when it goes behind a cloud, you are immediately cold.  Everyone should often be in this predicament to put our star in its rightful place.  A relatively small star in a particularly small arm of a very small galaxy, yet all our hopes, dreams, and lives depend on it.  If I didn’t know its Maker, I would be worshipping it this morning and begin to build a temple to it.  And I NEED worship, somewhere to place all this thanksgiving I have as this star shines on my body right now. Thank goodness for my Three God who makes the seemingly insignificant truly significant!!! Shine on, kind star, shine on.     

We are on the Cabot Trail, a beautiful
byway there in the background.

 

Tender and Mild

2 Days Ago,

I lay around in the morning; the RV is all quiet. I sit by the window drinking coffee, reading the Ancient Text, today leaving Malichai and joining the glad tidings of Christ’s ancestry in Matthew. Listening to good clarinet music in a forest of quiet color, a breeze rustling my world awake. We sit at the border of Canada; we are lazy; we have no reason to get going: “All is calm, all is bright, round yon virgin mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.”

Backroading Through Life

In a silent camp of old folks, long gone, homes abandoned for warmer climates.  Alone, 300 miles north of “Welcome to Maine.”  In a forest of color, a lake, a tranquil dose of peace, a hard won seven hour trip through a corridor of color named a New England fall.  One unmentioned, old-world village, after another, nuzzled between a one-lane road across the mountains of Maine.  Backroading through life. 

Sunset in our campsite.

  

Roaming Away from paradise

I am a roamer.  By this, I mean I have never stayed long in one place, been a rolling stone since birth.  My dad was a roamer; my mom always said, “He has itchy feet.  Can’t seem to find a home anywhere.”  I lived in Jackson for 27 years, and in all those 9855 days I never spent one of them thinking of Jackson as home.  But I was born to roam.  By the time I graduated from High School, I had been in 11 different schools.  I married a woman who said she wouldn’t date me but would go hiking with me, and we have been tramping around the world ever since.  We are explorers, down roads with no names; trails marked only by our compass; wilderness and byways, lonely plains, windy cliffs, mountain passes and hidden meadows are all places we seem to end up. But now something has claimed our hearts, a home like no other, Fair Haven, the end of a gravel road, a cleared acre, a river, big blue sky, full moons, and warm fires has now claimed our hearts and wondering off has lost a bit of its call.  We are off again, but I confess, I leave sadly.  Will we find a garden and vista more sincere than we leave?  No!  For once in my life I have found a home, have been loaned it till we will be called home, an honest piece of earth worthy of prepping us for Paradise with God.