View from the Road
Nasty storms and a spate of freak accidents have kept work rolling in the door these days. I’m on the road more than I’m in the office, it seems, leaving me just a little backed up all over the place. This is what I can muster this week.
I do, sometimes — in order to keep my wits those days when I’m to the top of my barn boots wading through loss and wreckage — try to stop and pay attention to the other things. The ones that make me smile or sigh or just stand still a while.
Now and then I’ll even pull over to the side the road and just look and breathe and maybe pull the camera from my gear.
Other times I have to keep moving to my next stop, but the image stays long.
Like this one:
Silver tresses fly wild as old bones bend double
She leans into the wind and
Wields hammer and chisel against
A letter box rusted shut
The question echoes each blow
How long since they’ve spoken?
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But other times it’s more just this sort of thing:
I felt confused for the sad little boat. Boats are supposed to be in the water; not water in the boats.
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Cheating here. This wasn’t on the road but on my parents’ patio. But still. I thought some folks (like this one or this one) might like it.
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If I thought the boat was sad and confused . . . A church with an end date? Really? The hills are full of these places. (This church is not the same as this one.)
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I just wanted to stay all day.
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I’m back at it bright and early tomorrow.
But you? Tell me someplace you’ve been lately?
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Related:
I Need Bad Stuff to Happen To You
Top photo is not mine but courtesy Donald Champion. (The lady with the mailbox was armed with hand tools. It didn’t seem prudent to stop.) The rest came from my View from the Road.
Thanks for inviting us all along on your journey through a day…
2011/07/21 at 7:39 AM
Thanks for coming by, Karin.
2011/07/21 at 9:01 AM
What is the story on the end date to that church? I’ve been in Chicagoland attending orientation with my son, seeing God’s fingerprints in some of the most unlikely of places. Thought of you often–was up to my armpits in Scandinavians. Not literally, of course.
2011/07/21 at 8:59 AM
He leaves fingerprints all over, Nancy. Hope that was a good trip.
I don’t know this church, so I can’t really say. (Couldn’t even tell you again where it is.) It caught my eye as I drove past, so I did a quick Starsky and Hutch type maneuver to turn around and go back and look. If I had to guess, I’d say the congregation either moved into town and a new building, or the church merged with another to stay alive. There’s a cemetery there and the building seems to be at least partially maintained, unlike some others in similar straits.
I’ve just never seen a body boast start and end dates.
2011/07/21 at 9:05 AM
It is just a building. The church didn’t end in 1968. Christ told Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church and nothing shall prevail against it (my paraphrase)”. But like you I often wonder what happened to the congregations of those abandoned/empty buildings that dot the countryside in South Dakota and other states. Your own congregation is the result of a merger with a small town congregation who moved to a bigger community. Grain elevators and church buildings seem to be the structures that remain long after the original community or congregation has moved on.
Having been in a leadership position when we disbanded a congregation in the city of Minneapolis and also in a leadership position in the early days of your merger, the emotions run the full gamut of highs and lows. But in looking back, the process worked, the Lord’s hand was definitely in the decision making, and kingdom is probably better served.
I wondered when and where you would use the picture of the finch that you worked so hard to capture.
Dad
2011/07/21 at 9:57 AM
Dad, given the end date is back to 1968, I have to think they outgrew that building and moved. I can’t imagine why else they would put the spotlight on the date. I know if my church (body, not building) crumbled to the ground, I would not put it on a sign.
2011/07/21 at 7:50 PM
Beautiful… Thank you for sharing a little bit of your travels with us. Love the yellow finches
2011/07/21 at 10:55 AM
I’m not much of a bird watcher, Julie. Not much of an anything watcher, really. But I’m trying to learn to pay attention. Gives me a refreshing contrast to the messes I find myself in every day.
2011/07/21 at 7:51 PM
There is just the strangest beauty in rust … your words help me see “her” and her desire to communicate.
And yes, “this one” did enjoy your finch! Thanks for the mention.
2011/07/21 at 12:49 PM
I don’t know what she was up to, but she sure did catch my eye there on the shoulder of the highway pounding the daylights out of her mailbox. About rust? Yes. There is an old Standard station on one of my regular routes, with the original sign still intact though the whole place is pretty well overgrown. Most of the sign is rusted away, but every time I see it I want to stop. I wonder what it’s seen there in its years at the roadside.
2011/07/21 at 7:53 PM
What an inspired way to get away from the rush and toil for just a little while. I have never, ever seen a church sign like that Lyla. What on earth?
I haven’t really been anywhere lately, but my fertile little imagination has taken me to ocean shores. I do miss the ocean.
2011/07/21 at 7:44 PM
It’s probably a little strange, Linda, but especially in these weeks where I’m spending so many hours on the road, it really sort of helps me keep focused on something besides work and blacktop to get out and look.
I’m betting in your hot, long, drought days the ocean would be heaven.
2011/07/21 at 7:54 PM
This is lovely, Lyla – every word, every image. LOVED the yellow finch – I ‘shoot’ birds when I can, too. We have lots of finches here in SoCal but none that are bright yellow like that. Which is probably why I go a little crazy when the hooded orioles show up in our yard – you can see one at this post: http://drgtjustwondering.blogspot.com/2011/07/quiet-morning.html
Sorry about that baseball game, kiddo. Them’s the breaks. :>(
Diana
2011/07/21 at 10:59 PM
as a fellow bird lover… that is a good capture ! I love finch. love.
I like this post. I like to think of you Starsky and Hutching to notice .
I’ve been home for a stretch, noticing the laundry and dry grass, and cars coming and going in the driveway…. last trip Philadelphia and Boston early summer. Probably going to Montreal to bring a daughter back to McGill for preseason soccer in a couple of weeks.
Very anxiously awaiting the arrival ( via pick up of hubby ) of daughter who has stayed in the Boston area this summer for a visit next weekend.
2011/07/22 at 5:13 PM
Silver tresses armed with the hand tools makes me smile Lyla…but then you usually either make me smile or cry….no middle ground here lady.
2011/07/24 at 7:52 PM