Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Andrew Peterson

When the light shines brightest {or We’ve got work to do}

I told you some of how I’ve been feeling since Election Day and those things are still true. I’m sad and confused and hurt and taking on the pain of others so much so that I’ve had to limit my social media use so I can function for my family.

But there’s something else stirring and while it’s not as noticeable yet, it gives me hope that what I’m feeling now is not all there is to feel.

—

It was a Monday of all days, and I had walked the kids to the bus stop. Fall mornings around here offer a chill, foreshadowing the season to come when we’ll be bundled up like snow adventurers just to walk a few feet to the bus. But the sun rises and warms the day and by afternoon, we’re outside again, with or without jackets to play and soak up as much time on the porch and in the yard as the season allows.

Fall has been fickle this year, giving us summer-like days and winter-like chills, all the while the leaves have taken their sweet time in changing colors, but change they have.

And when I walked back to the house that morning, this is what I saw at the end of our driveway.

The leaves on the tree next door turn sunshine yellow and fall onto our driveway like a carpet. It is my favorite part of autumn, I remember, and the sun glinting through the branches on its way to its peak stopped me where I stood. I felt like I had stumbled into something holy.

—

I’m not in the van as much these days, but when I do have the chance to put a CD on repeat, it’s Andrew Peterson’s The Burning Edge of Dawn, mostly because of the first song, The Dark Before the Dawn.

Take a listen or look up the lyrics. It helps me identify what I’m feeling and have felt. That dark days will come but dawn will follow. That we will have pain but there will be a balm.

I’m not just speaking of politics here because my life has seen plenty of dark days before last Tuesday, but it all reminds me that light shines brightest in the darkness. The sun almost blinds me first thing in the morning because my eyes have adjusted to the dark of night. It is the same reason the first colors of spring seem so bright after a winter full of brown and white.

I am in no way hoping for dark days ahead. I will not celebrate anything like that. But I know that no matter what the days ahead bring, I have a job to do and that is to bring Light into the world. In our church tradition, we culminate Advent with a candlelight service to symbolize the birth of the Light into a dark world.

We are constantly bearing this Light today and birthing it into the world.

When I watch the news, I am not thrilled by it but I see the potential for the bearers of Light to get to work and continue to work. As bleak as the future might seem, I am hopeful that the Church will do its best work in the days ahead. That we will stand against injustice with a loud voice instead of a whisper. That artists will create their greatest pieces. That beauty and love will be the hallmarks of a people who sometimes appear the opposite.

I do not hope these things as some sort of naive Pollyanna. It is not my nature to be optimistic. But I know that to Be Light in the midst of darkness is to be noticed and that millennia ago we, the Church, were invited to Be Light because the Light had come. In those days the world loved darkness more than Light, and it may be true in our day, too. But Light will always overcome.

Our work has always been the same, but sometimes we forget. At least I do. Or I cast off my responsibility because maybe there’s already enough Light in the world. But our world needs the Light more than ever.

And there are all kinds of light. Some of us will be a blazing fire. Others of us will be like a single candle. But it’s all Light and all bearing Light and it doesn’t matter if you’re a bonfire on a hill or a flashlight in the basement.

It is past time to Be Light in the world, and I say this to myself knowing that it might get darker before it gets lighter, that the light might be dim or faint, but to look for the Light is to make a declaration that all hope is not lost.

How have you seen Light in the darkness? How will you Be Light in this world?

When you don't know the way

“Your destination is on the right.”

I was on my way to a friend’s house, driving unfamiliar territory, thus relying on the GPS. A few months ago, my husband and I joined the world of smartphone users and became painfully aware of how dumb we could be without them. This was not the first time I had given my phone the “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me” look.

When I’d punched in the address for my new friend’s house, the GPS gave me two scenic route options, and I took one because it was a nice fall day in Lancaster County, a place people pay money to come see in the fall, and I can see it every day for free. I passed touristy stuff and plenty of Amish buggies and schools, letting the GPS guide me as I gawked at the trees, rolling hills and changing colors.

When the GPS voice confidently declared I had arrived, I had my doubts. The only thing on my right was a cow pasture, and I was pretty sure my new friend was not a farmer.

I continued driving the road, thinking maybe it just had the wrong “right” location and I’d find the correct address if I kept going.

Then the road ended. And I had no idea where I was.

That’s when I called my friend.

“I’m pretty sure I’m lost,” I said. I gave her some road names and she confirmed my suspicions.

“Yeah,” she said. “You really are lost.”

Turns out there’s a big difference between “road” and “avenue” in addresses around here. One will put you in a cow pasture. The other, will lead you to a friend.

—

blank sign

I’m off course right now. Wandering in a cow pasture in the form of laundry and dishes and sickness and disappointment. At times, I hear the words “This is it. This is all there is” and even though I doubt the truth that I’ve arrived at my destination, part of my believes it.

Because I don’t know the way.

I don’t know how to get from here–where my son shrieks for my attention and sits on my lap when all I want to do is write. To there–where I can write and write and write the stories in my head. My blog sits empty. My mind turns to  mush under the weight of all.the.household.stuff. And I wonder if there’s a way to get there. Or if I should stop looking.

I don’t know the way to love well. I complain and whine and mutter sarcasm under my breath even to the ones I love because I feel unloved.

And I don’t know the way to love from a distance, when family and friends are hurting. I fear doing the wrong thing so I do nothing they can see.

And sometimes I choose all the paths, instead of one good one, because I think the way to “be” is to “do.” And I find myself lost again, unsure of how I got there.

—

Our family relies on the GPS a lot more now than I ever thought we would.

On the one hand, it’s made me more adventurous to try new routes and explore new areas because hey, if I get lost, the GPS always knows where I am and can help me find my way back.

That day, it got me back to where I needed to be without further incident, and I was grateful.

Though it often gives us the shortest, most direct route, I tend to use it to find the country roads, the back ways, the less traveled paths.

Takes longer, sometimes, and sometimes, I get lost.

But sometimes, getting lost leads to discovery. Unintentionally, I found the best ice cream in Lancaster County that day, according to my new friend. Next time, I’ll have to stop and try it.

—

It’s a tired joke that men won’t stop to ask for directions or admit they’re lost. Truthfully, I have a hard time admitting the same, and having a GPS almost makes it more humiliating.

But the truth is, we all lose our way, or have at some point. We’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up in a “bad” part of an unfamiliar city. Before our GPS days, Phil and I once missed the exit for LaGuardia to pick his parents up from the airport and ended up on some city streets in Queens. In the middle of the night. Talk about scary for these country bumpkins from Illinois.

Or maybe we tried a side road and found a detour or construction. Or we kept to the highway and an accident barred our passage and we had to find our way around it.

Delays, detours, missed exits, wrong addresses. It’s a part of life.

And of course, I’m not just talking about driving.

How easy is it for us to admit we’ve lost our way in other areas of life? Can we say to someone else, “I’m lost. I just don’t know what to do next.” Whether it’s a job decision or a family crisis or the pursuit of a dream. It’s never easy to admit it. But until we can say the words “I’m lost,” we’ll find it hard to find our way forward.

—

Sometimes, the way forward, is back.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMn3ThuvGMo&w=560&h=315]

—

Maybe it’s not so much that I’m lost. Wandering. Unsure of the way. Maybe it’s more that I’ve picked the wrong voice to listen to.

I trusted the GPS the day I ended up lost. But even as I drove, I remembered what my friend said.

“It’s really easy to find.”

Two or three turns into the adventure, I should have realized I was off course. But I trusted the GPS. And it’s only as smart as the one punching in the destination.

—

Jesus said, “You know the way to the place where I am going.”

 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.