I just arrived back from an extended weekend, which included Thanksgiving festivities and mountain-climbing in east Tennessee and a beautiful wedding of two good friends in Roanoke, Virginia. I drove over a thousand miles and to say that arriving back was a welcome relief would be quite the understatement. I enjoy travelling immensely, but I was ready to be home about 200 miles into my trip home today (too bad transporters from StarTrek have yet to be invented.) It was quite a long way home, to be honest. And not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, too.
I enjoyed the mountains and rushing through them with my windows cracked open, the smell of pines and birches wafting in and interrupting my thoughts in the solitude and silence that–for a few hundred miles–transformed my Toyota into a sanctuary.
To be silent ought not to be a challenge–but for me, it is.
It is rare, only when I am at Radnor, on the water, on the trail with a pack, with a trusted friend, and in my car for a road trip, which silence occurs naturally and is welcomed on my behalf.
It was not until later, after an internal pep talk to keep driving (with the help of gas station coffee-which was simply sickening) that my sanctuary shifted forms and I began to reenter reality by listening to a mix of choral, Celtic, Christmas hymns, and alternative rock. It is interesting to me how easily my state of peace, which centered on the silence within my car, was shattered as soon as the music began. How often do we fill our lives with noise and other distractions that take our focus away? For me, as the ride home began to feel endless, I began to realize that I intentionally keep my life noisey and jam-packed in order to ignore or avoid the real issues at hand. Even now, I am writing this while being distracted by thoughts of going for a hike shortly, hanging out with a friend before church, tonight’s church service, a friend’s layover at my apartment tonight, and tomorrow’s convocation session at Belmont with some AIM staff members as well as a major research deadline at the end of this week. Oh and I am listening to Bon Iver, Elliot Smith, and Explosions in the Sky. Me, caught up in the noise of life? Me, distracted? Never. Not a chance.
Why do I do this? Why do I keep myself so busy that I’ve lost my way home? Where is my home, anyway? One of my best friends, Tiffany Schoenhoff, told me years ago that God is my home. I know this and am beginning to believe this more and more as I prepare to leave the place I finally feel home at in one month from today.
So, when all is said and done, regardless of my intentional distractions, I know that God is my home and He desires for me to be focused on Him and what He is doing around me, in the people I am blessed with, and in my own life–even if it feels like a long way home.
