Grace on the Road

One of my favorite tunes from the 1951 musical Paint Your Wagon is “I’m On My Way”. The lyrics have been running through my head for the last few days and seem particularly appropriate today as we set off on our anticipated six weeks on the road.

“Where am I goin’? I don’t know.
Where am I headin’? I ain’t certain.
All I know is I am on my way.
When will I be there? I don’t know.
When will I get there? I ain’t certain.
All I know is I am on my way.”

Yes, we do have a general plan in mind, with a destination arranged for each night along the way. But any of that can change. Nothing is really written in stone. And we are open to being surprised by what each day may hold.

We Americans have a very difficult time living without some sort of plan. We know that there are circumstances that are beyond our control. But we want to maintain as much control as we can. Perhaps it makes us feel safer. The problem is that even the control we think we have is mostly an illusion.

I have noticed that one downside for me of planning too much is that it keeps me from enjoying the present moment. And I really don’t want to miss the present moment because this is where God is. The present is really the only place I can meet Him. Yes, a bit of planning is prudent. But then I need to leave the plan in His hands and relax, trusting Him to direct my steps. Proverbs 16:9 tells us, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Or as a plaque my friend had in her office says, “We plan; God laughs.”

Our route today took us through St. Louis, MO. We had hoped to be there in time for Palm Sunday Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis at noon. We got a little later start than we had intended. And there was rain, so that didn’t help. But then we realized I hadn’t factored in the time zone change or how close the basilica was to the interstate. We easily found a parking place and actually arrived in time for an earlier Mass.

It would have been a delight simply to visit the basilica. It is stunningly beautiful. The interior is filled with brightly colored mosaics. The sweet security guard, Mr. Wear, told us that if all the tiles were laid out flat they would cover 85 acres. Imagine! Even filled with people, there is such a sense of reverence and peace I could have happily stayed for hours.

Getting to participate in worship there was an incredible privilege. I’m sure it will be one of the highlights of our trip for me. The choral music was lovely, but the acoustics of the cathedral made it almost haunting. And when the congregation sang or prayed together, the voices blended and reverberated and gave me chills. Is this a foretaste of what it will be like to sing God’s praises in heaven?

I would love to have spent more time at the basilica, but we needed to move on. And in any case, our good God had other sweet surprises in store for us. There were isolated clusters of snow white daffodils dotting the roadside every so often. Many of the fields, at least those not covered in standing water, were covered in purple vetch. A single lawn chair at the edge of the woods facing the interstate made me wonder who had put it there and why. Did they just like relaxing by watching all the cars go by? A lone church in the middle of wide open fields caught my eye, quite a contrast to the basilica, but equally lovely in a different way.

One field had already been planted and was awash in a brilliant neon green. After noticing it, I began to really be aware of the variety of shades of green we were seeing. Mossy green on trees just coming into leaf. Nearly black green in the deeps of wooded areas. Rolling waves of shaded greens across some of the fields. I’m so grateful for the gift of color vision!

It’s been a long day in the car, but a day filled with blessings I would have missed by doing too much planning. I wonder what tomorrow will hold…

Today was a very long day! Lesson learned. We probably tried to squeeze in too much. But it was all just so…good!!!

I use a prayer app that has audio of all seven daily offices. My day begins nearly every day with Vigils, also known as the Office of Readings. This app has such beautiful music!

Today I was greeted with the hymn “Most Ancient of All Mysteries” by Frederick William Faber. This verse in particular spoke to my heart:

How wonderful creation is,
The work which You did bless!
What then must You be like dear God,
eternal Loveliness!

The Lord speaks to me so often by His creation. Most often, as I’m sure has been observed by now, I focus on details. But out here on the road, you just can’t miss the big picture. How will the Father teach me over the next several weeks via His creation?

One of the most special lessons of the day, although one of the more challenging, came during morning Mass. We visited the Church of St. Joseph the Apostle in Joplin, MO. Just as Mass was about to begin, a young father with two toddlers rushed in. To me he just looked frazzled. The children were adorable. And happy. But to say they were disruptive would be an understatement. My first response was irritation. But the sweet priest just went right on without batting an eyelash. And I sensed the Lord whispering to my heart, “Let the little children come to Me. How else will they learn of Me? You don’t know this family’s whole story.”

I will admit that I struggled internally between knowing what Jesus was asking of me and just simply being irritated. But during the passing of the peace one of the children, a cute little guy with blonde curls and wide eyes, turned around and offered me his hand and a smile. And I melted. I simply melted.

Oklahoma was a tremendous surprise. I didn’t expect it to be so hilly. Or colorful. Or to have so many trees. It was quite a windy day, even for Oklahoma. And where the grass was tall, it rippled in the most amazing neon green waves. We passed fields of wildflowers in every color, mostly red. One field seemed to have been deliberately planted in something with vibrant yellow blossoms.

The animals seemed to enjoy it, too. Lots of cattle, mostly Angus, in open pasture. (No feedlots that we could see.) And horses. One horse in particular was rolling and rolling in some tall grass while his buddies looked on. They seemed to be laughing with him, just enjoying the sunshine and the green. This lovely pastoral scene reminded me that life is a good gift from our generous Father. I think when we play and laugh and enjoy what He provides, it delights His heart.

“Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it
Let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.”
— Psalm 96:11-13

It was just that sort of day.

The people we meet always make a huge impression on me. So many are so kind, even in their suffering. The gentleman who helped us at the Oklahoma Welcome Center was the great-great-grandson of a Cherokee woman who walked from Georgia on the Trail of Tears. We were buying postcards for our grandkids, and he was so happy telling us about his own grandchildren. Linda, the hostess at the Blue Whale of Catoosa (Look it up! It’s a hoot! One of the “attractions” on the old Route 66…), is a breast cancer survivor.

April, the winemaker at a winery we visited, is caring for her father in the end stages of colon cancer. She was so glad she’d been able to repurpose an old Catholic church when the parish built a new one. She waved us off with a free wine glass.

There were others who may have difficult things in their lives about which we will never know. Don’t we all? Victoria welcomed us to church, even though it wasn’t her parish, and invited us to her own church in Springfield, MO. Henry, the altar server, made a point of greeting us after Mass and inviting us to return. And Bill, in Weatherford, OK, walked across the parking lot to shake our hands and welcome us to his town while we were visiting the wind turbine blade display. Even the manager of Dyer’s Bar-B-Que, whose name I sadly didn’t catch (It was late and we were pretty much closing down the place!), blessed us with a free jar of barbecue sauce.

Isn’t God good to bless us with the people He puts in our paths? Even those we find challenging can provide glimpses of His grace if we are open to noticing.

The last place we stopped before reaching our destination was a giant cross in Groom, TX. I honestly thought it would be just a piece of roadside kitsch. But I was so wrong! It’s a lovely, quiet spot just off Interstate 40 in the Texas panhandle. The cross itself is 19 stories high and can be seen from 20 miles away. It is surrounded by life-sized sculptures of the Stations of the Cross. I would love to have spent more time there. But we were there at the end of the day and needed to get on down the road.

So now we are in Amarillo, TX. It’s flat. Lots of sky. And smells like a barnyard. (Little wonder, what with all the cattle!) It was late when we rolled in. And I was exhausted. So perhaps I will notice more tomorrow.

Sleep is also God’s gift. And I need to appreciate this gift as well!

The road today took us from Amarillo, TX to Santa Fe, NM. We covered fewer miles today than on other days. But I think the landscape changed more rapidly and dramatically than on any day yet. And this really took me by surprise because, for most of the day, everything seemed pretty flat. I felt that I could see everything for miles, but then suddenly we would be passing a rock formation or descending into a valley. The view would be blocked, but when we emerged, things would look totally different.

Isn’t this often the way it is with life? We could swear that we’ve got a good handle on how things are, that we have the full picture. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, something will happen that causes us to see things from a totally different perspective. And once that happens, there is no looking back. G.K. Chesterton once said, “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is, at last, to set foot in one’s own country as a foreign land.” I felt that this is exactly what I was doing all day long! Seeing my own country as I’ve never seen it before…over and over and over!

Most of the day was quite lovely. It was sunny and breezy and in the 60s for most of the day. But there was one area, just beyond Amarillo, that I found difficult to stomach. I should have expected something ugly up ahead when we passed three dead cows on the side of the interstate, just piled up as though they had been dumped. John and I looked at each other with a sort of shocked expression of, “Was that what I think it was?!?” Not long after this we came upon the first feedlot I’ve ever personally experienced. I’ve read about CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) and the incredibly inhumane way that most of the beef and dairy products in the United States are produced. But experiencing one, even the small one we passed, even as a drive-by on the highway, absolutely sickened me. The cattle were crowded into pens with barely room to turn around. The stench was overwhelming. It bore no resemblance to the barn smells most of us associate with farm life. This was a reek I’d never before imagined. And it stuck with us for miles. Rudyard Kipling wrote, “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” I generally associate “smelling” a culture with its cuisine, or perhaps the local vegetation. What does this horrific odor reflect about a culture that tolerates the situation that produces it?

Blessedly, our day improved drastically after this experience. We’ve seen plenty of wind farms on our way west. But near Vega, TX we got to see one under construction. I don’t generally expect to see cranes out in the middle of a field that seems to go on forever. But these windmills are massive! How else could they be built?

Again, the people we meet along the way are endlessly fascinating. Russel, who we met at Russel’s Travel Center(!), was just passing through on his way from Santa Fe to Oklahoma. He was hauling a pickup load of wicker furniture, and pointed us to places to stop on the way to Santa Fe. Jerry, who works at a free car and nostalgia museum, whipped out a poster about a Chevy convention in Bowling Green, KY when I mentioned that my dad (and now my brother) had a ‘55 Chevy Bel Aire. Yolanda, our server at the little Mexican restaurant in Tucumcari, NM has been known as Yogi since childhood. She also does flower arranging which she picked up on YouTube and now has quite a thriving business. And three grandchildren, who are the joy of her life.

One lesson I learned today was not to blink! The roadside was chock full of wonderful sights. But they would appear and then vanish in seconds. We saw, for instance, a few pronghorn antelope just a few feet from the road. But before I could count them, they were gone. I tried for ages to snap a photo of one of the many older windmills dotting the ranches we passed. I finally mastered the trick of focusing and got a good shot just before we arrived in Santa Fe.

Maybe I just need to keep the memories stored in my head instead of freezing them with my camera…

We topped off our day with evening Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis in Santa Fe. Because of preparations for Easter, Mass was held in the St. Joseph Chapel, just off the south transept of the cathedral.

I must say that attending Mass in these different churches scattered across the country is one of the highlights of the trip for me thus far. “I never weary of great churches,” said Robert Louis Stevenson. “Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.” Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burned yesterday, which gave a layer of poignancy to my visit today. I especially appreciate the great blessing I have to gather with God’s people wherever I may be in these incredible churches built to His glory.

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him;
bless his name.”
—Psalm 110:4