Trail Markers Along the Way
The Ocean PathThis summer, while on vacation on Mt. Desert Island in Maine, we went to the harbor in Bar Harbor. The grassy hillside there is one of our favorite places (as is the clam chowder at the Bar Harbor Inn, which, in our opinions, is the best on the Island--but I digress. . .), because we can spread out a blanket, or sit in our beach chairs and watch the boats on the harbor, or watch people, or lie back on the blanket and look at cloud shapes.The other thing I like to do is to walk the Ocean Path that winds along the edge of the shore. One afternoon, as I walked this path, I noticed children on the rocks, building cairns.CairnsA cairn is a mound of rough stones. Used as landmarks since prehistoric times, a cairn is often used as a trailmarker. They can be painted or decorated--although the cairns we have seen in Maine are not. Cairns are very useful when you are hiking a trail, and you're not quite sure if you're on the right path. A deliberately placed cairn tells you you're on the right path. In extreme circumstances, this can mean the difference in life or death if you're on a treacherous path, or the weather has turned bad.But on this lovely summer afternoon, I watched the children for a moment, and I chuckled. It looked like a number of summer visitors had been enchanted with building cairns. So here is what the cairns looked like:
In terms of what a cairn is supposed to be, these piles of stones were fun to look at. I know they were activities that occupied children on a summer day. Yet as markers along a pathway? Not so much. A group of cairns in one place were just decorative stones, and I suspect children were playing games to see how high their piles could go before toppling.In our lives, it is important to have markers along the way. I was reminded of this in the past week, as I watched images of flood waters rising in Houston, Texas. Landmarks disappeared. Where streets had been visible, now one could see only water--it looked like a lake in many areas. Street signs were either partially visible, or completely submerged. Where there had been yards and fences and two-story homes, now scenes of mostly-submerged homes flashed across TV screens and computers. In some cases, homes were completely underwater.The landmarks that had been trustworthy--curbs, signs, traffic lights--could no longer be depended upon. Instead, people had to rely on their own internal landmarks: survival instincts, their fierce desires to protect their children (even when that cost them their own lives), and the hearts of other human beings who would reach out to help.So much death and destruction, so much loss, so much grief. I suspect many more dead will be found in the days to come. I cannot imagine the property damage, the implications for clean water, lack of sanitation, and upheaval of education for the children of that area with destroyed schools.
Help in the PsalmsPsalm 69 begins this way: "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me."Sometimes scripture speaks to our life experiences in ways we never expected, does it not? The psalms are amazing hymns that speak to absolutely every possible human emotion you and I have ever had, to a wide range of human experience--from illness to a friend's betrayal to loss to natural disasters to death and grief.Sometimes the psalmist cries out, asking God why God has abandoned him or her. Other times, the psalmist acknowledges a Creator who has knit us together in our mothers' wombs, one who knows every day of our lives before there was one. And in that well-loved psalm, Psalm 23, the psalmist holds tight to even a tenuous faith: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."In difficult times, people of faith look for landmarks, or spiritual cairns. Things that show us the way. Sometimes those signs along the way are actual trail markers. But we cannot always depend on those. Perhaps those internalized trail markers are the ones we need to nurture, help deepen, and grow. A life of faith will do that for you and your children.Fall Trail Markers?As summer ebbs into fall, I hope that you will realize how important our spiritual growth is, and turn to things that nurture and develop that. Then make a renewed commitment to coming to worship, perhaps to joining a new ministry, to bringing your children to Sunday School, and to considering being a part of our new Saturday evening "Alpha Lite" Program that starts in September (more on that to follow.)Meanwhile, if you have good trail markers in your life, say thank you to God. If you don't, the St. Philip's, Laurel community of faith could help you build some. In the meantime, pray for our brothers and sisters in Texas and Louisiana. They need all the prayers they can get. I pray that the risen Christ shows up in unexpected places and ways for them, and near them. ~Sheila+