Lenten Walk Pt 2 - Marks

Today, I went for a walk through the woods in back of my home. It was my first solitary walk, and the farthest I had explored since I moved in last month. Until last week, much of the property had been underwater; the result of spring rains melting the record snowfalls of our harsh winter. It was frustrating to look out across the field that led to the woods that were mine to explore and have to wait to lose myself in them.

Today was my opportunity.

As I walked through the woods to the river bank, I could still feel the ground squishing beneath my feet, leaving perfect imprints of my boots in the softest parts. However, I was committed to this trek. I wanted to see how far this trail would take me. I paused to watch the sunlight dance on the flowing river that marks the end of my property. The setting sun was at just the right angle to make the water seem electric. I was tacitly aware of the sound of birds around me, eventually noticing that I was surrounded by a flock of robins. I’ve never seen more than one or two robins, much less a flock, but there were at least six, all singing together a song announcing the end to a winter that was far too long. I was grateful for their companionship along the trail. It is on these walks that I reflect on my life and spend some time in prayer. I’m not so good at formal prayers. Well, that’s really not true. I’m quite good at formal praying, offering weekly prayers in my role as a pastor. People are often led closer to their own spiritual voice when I pray in public, but these are not the prayers I pray when I’m alone.

Alone, I begin a dialog with God. There are conversations that offer thanksgiving, confessions, questions, and requests for the strength and wisdom to do the things that are in the path in front of me. Today was no different. Only today my thoughts flowed, like the river in front of me, to where I was going.

I thought about how far my “trail” has already taken me. Setting out on a journey is always filled with anticipation as to what one will find on the road, especially if one knows their destination. All I’ve ever known is that I have my sights set on living and breathing in such a way that, as Thoreau said,  I would not, “when I came to die, discover that I had not truly lived.”  Along this journey I have learned a great deal about myself, God, love, and what it means to walk. I have also lost a great deal along this road. Behind me are relationships and comforts that simply could not come with me, not if I am to achieve the goal for which I set out in the first place.

As I walked, I considered the path in front of me; endless options of how to live. In many ways, like most of us, I’m a mosaic of a man. I’m a pastor, writer, lover, father, friend, handyman, speaker, listener, and child. I have a heart that looks less like an ocean and more like a delta, a maze of tributaries that all flow together to make up the soul that lives in my skin. Some of the parts of me don’t seem to fit with some of the other parts, and I’m still working on reconciling those things, but every man has to have a core and on this walk I began to ask questions about my own. I wanted to discover my illusive bottom line.

As the sun set, I made my way back through the forest, making sure to note the parts of the ground that were more than just a little squishy. I noticed that the place where the water had been only weeks before could only be described as: wrinkled. I know it’s odd to describe the earth as wrinkled, but it looked like a child’s fingertips after soaking in a warm bath. I understood that what I was seeing were little creek beds, ruts in the earth that the water had cut in order to return to where it belonged. The flood had altered the landscape and I considered my life.

This lenten season, I feel I have been led on a spiritual journey of discovering the “essential facts of life”, if I may borrow again from Thoreau. My life had, in the past, become filled with many things that were simply not life. In the losses of my journey there has been extraordinary simplification as I have spent many days (and nights) without the creature comforts to which I had become so accustomed. I have found myself on a fast that was not of my choosing, but from which I could begin to see my own soul.

As I considered the marks in the landscape, I thought about what I am trying to accomplish in my life. There is a greatness locked inside all of us that is begging not to be muted by the mundane. I’ve often translated that greatness in what I could accomplish or build or experience or obtain.  We all want to leave a mark, a legacy, the question is how. This river didn’t build or plan to make a dent on my property. This river did what rivers do; the river flowed. The river took what it was receiving and carried it along, working to get all the water where it needed to be, and changing the world as it went.

I want to do that.

I considered the journey of Jesus. The most extraordinary acts of this great man were done in relative obscurity. He never built a church, founded a hospital, overthrew a government, or even travelled outside the borders of His tiny home country. He never wrote a book or recorded a song. In fact, there is so little record of His life that there are thinking people who argue that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. The man on whom the world’s largest religion was founded had three years of active ministry that began strong, but slowly dwindled down to a handful of adherents. Before His execution, performed as a trade for a political dissident, he had, by all estimations, accomplished nothing.

Except, He left a mark.

Jesus did what came natural to Him. He taught about the things He had discovered in His own life journey, He healed people, and He performed certain acts that were evidence to the people who observed them that He represented God. But He was not the only miracle-working teacher who had walked the roads of this country. The acts themselves were not what was extraordinary. It was the love He left behind that altered the landscape. 

His capacity to love is what changed the world.

He was a man who lived, truly lived.

As I traced along those ruts with my boot, I asked God for the grace to walk as Jesus walked. I want to, when I come to the end of my journey, to be known as a man with a great capacity for love. I want to live in such a way that I leave a mark. I don’t need my mark to be a building or organization with my name on it. I don’t need to be on television or have my name in lights. In fact, if it’s only a handful who even remember my name, it’s okay by me. I just want the world to be better when I go. I want people to have known what it is to be loved, truly loved, because I was there, and know what it means to love others as a result. Doing this might mean I find all of those marks of fame and success as well…but they won’t be my legacy.

I’m praying you are.