Mountain Climbing

The most dangerous part of mountain climbing is not the climbing up, but the descent. During the descent the ice is looser, the snow softer, and, most critcally, the climbers are tired. The last two days have been a reminder of that truth; the nearly 100-degree weather, of course, not helping :) I've had a buzz of chaos around me: the keys, the missing moving van (who will show up, they assure me, on the 29th), and various little things such as leaving my purchases behind at the hardware store. Then today, while on the phone with Steve Hines, the pickup in front of me lost control -- because he was reaching for his cell phone. He swerved across the highway, hit the concrete wall, bounced back across the highway and into the other wall. I pulled over in front of him and called 911. The truck was totaled, but inspite of that (and inspite of the 2x4s that went through the back of his cab window), he crawled out the passenger window and was just fine. I helped him to walk away from the car (something was dripping on the ground -- my B-movie instincts thought "Gasoline!", though it was probably windshield wiper fluid). An ambulance that was driving by pulled over within seconds of the accident, followed by the fire department and police. I drove off after talking with the police, but still shaken even now by the rembered images of the accident. Prayers tonight for Joe and for a swift recovery.

Given the heat and chaos, then, I am so thankful that some time was built in between my arrival to Massachusetts and when I begin serving at Messiah. I need to rediscover that center in me, so that I can be present to the prayers and stories and music and community. I'm impatient to start, but so glad to be unpacking and sleeping...

Jibran, our cat, has his own approach to avoiding the chaos and fatigue of transition: in a new environment, he hides under the bed for a few days! That is in fact what Jibran is doing right now, hiding under the futon. I went and picked him up last night. He had been living with Michael, a bass player who rented the upstairs floor in my cousin's house. Michael wasn't home when I came to pick Jibran up, but his girlfriend was there. He was whisked off into his cage, and as we got ready to leave, she began crying. Which says something about Jibran's ability to charm his way into people's hearts. Iza had been afraid that if Jibran stayed with someone while I was travelling, they wouldn't give him back. She was nearly right!

It's hardly all chaos and missing moving vans, though. Some wonderful highlights to the last two days, including meeting with Paul West and getting the keys to the church -- and seeing my name listed on the sign outside, The Rev. Devin McLachlan. It was even spelled right :) The church is as beautiful as I remember, a space built to help folks pray, without distractions or clutter. There are ideas and projects and brainstorms that rush to me when I walk through the grounds. I'm going to get a notebook and keep track of them on paper -- better to write them down and let them mature, than to blurt out every idea and sound as if I threaten to turn the parish upside-down! But I am excited, and I am looking forward to the work to come.

Keys to the Kingdom

Cambridge, MA; mile 3,674



Home at last, thank God almighty, home at last. And the last day more complicated than the first. The running theme the last two days has been house keys: our landlord is in Amsterdam, and our housekeys have been left with one of the other folks living in our building. Of course, he was out of town yesterday (Friday), when I finally got around to warning him of my arrival. The conclusion to the saga was discovering this afternoon that my front door key didn't fit the lock! So at quarter to midnight I'm finally at home, having spent all day locked out. Better than the poor apocryphal fellow in Denmark who went out for a beer his first day in a new apartment and has forgotten where he lives.

Inbetween this off-key adventure, though, was a lot of wonder.A beautiful drive through upstate New York, especially the Adirondacks. Stunning, rolling mountains and lakes and farmland and small roads. An evangelical carpenter who made a walking stick for Mom and talked about how he was looking forward to seeing, in heaven, what kind of carpentry Jesus did. And about the cell churches he was founding. The mad but compasionate look in his eyes, someone working hard to follow where the Holy Spirit was leading.

Getting totally lost just north of Albany -- the last time I was in Albany, I got kicked off a Greyhound bus, so I already had no fondness for the city. 2 1/2 hours wandering small county lanes, thanks to my desire to find a 'short cut' through scenic farmland around the city; then, after taking a construction detour I decided -- heck with detouring back north, I'm sure I can figure out another way to connect with the highway I want... A frustratign experience but one that will probably end up in a sermon at Messiah at some point. A strange example of grace and humility (or rather, the lack thereof).

So it was almost 5 o'clock by the time I saw Jason, with still no word about getting house keys. It was a great gift of time, though. We got to hang out, arrainge storage (another story there -- the moving van broke down, and they don't know when it will arrive in Massachusetts. Heard horrible stories about moving vans catching fire or drivers quiting...). And then spent the rest of the day and evening haying in Shirley, MA. Wish I had pictures for you of the hours we spent, catching hay bales as they came flying out of the bailer, a pitching machine sending 40 pound bales flying out from the back of the bailer into the hay rick, where we stood catching (!) the bales and stacking them up. Great fun ('til the alternator on the tractor broke), hard sweaty work in the setting sun and summer heat, relieved by gin & tonics, green curry, and hydrocortisone (hay leaves incredible welts, especially when youa re foolish enough to work in short sleaves...)


A farmer in NY State, but the same system of bailing as the one Jason and I took part in...

Then this morning, a drive down the rest of Route 2 into Cambridge's Central Square, blasting the last movements from Swan Lake. Arrived safely at our summer sublet. We're subletting the top floor and attic/loft of a townhouse on a quiet private lane just off of bustling, diverse, happening Central Square. Coffee Houses, organic grocery stores, and a strange combination of social service agencies, marxist book store, and the Gap. There are two other units -- a man in the basement, whose twin brother and his wife live in the ground and second floor with their 2 year old, Sophie, and their 7-week-old daughter who is yet to be named.... It's a beautiful building and a decent furnished sublet. There are flaws, of course -- exposed drywall, a fridge that needs serious cleaning, and the joy of living in the top floors on a day when tempratures approached 100. So today I bought a fan, a water pitcher, a mop and sponges. By the time Iza arrives, the place will be clean. At the moment it is as clean as I would make it for myself, but not as clean as I would have it for someone else. And there is a telling statement!

Being locked out wasn't too bad -- I hung out on the for-sale couches in the hardware store and talked with Mom. Then off to Rick and Terry McCall (Rick was my liturgy prof. and was the interim at Messiah for 9 months), where we sat outside and had an excellent salmon dinner. By the time dinner was done, Donna (who lives downstairs) had called and left a key for me under a flowerpot.

So now I'm home. The driving, if not the journey, is complete. I still have to scrub and unpack, begin learning more about Messiah (hooray!), welcome Iza to Mass., head to Maine for a wedding, write a sermon for that first Sunday, plan the conversation with my future in-laws... oh so many things. Good news for prayer because this is more than I can handle, which is usually the most effective incentive to stop, close my eyes, and remember that God is God.

No promises, given the above list, but I will try keep posting to this blog as I continue the rest of this journey, becoming rector at a parish which by all reports is wonderful, full of joy and music and healing and prayer and meditation... Let me know if you're still reading! Drop me a line at revmcdev@yahoo.com


There was even a blimp over Cambridge in celebration of my arrival!

Almost Home

Watertown, NY; mile 3,239


everyone misspells my name...

So much to pray for tonight; thanksgiving for being so close to home, and for being safe so far (which, as in Pilgrim's Progress, is a safety sometimes inspite of my actions -- trying to take a picture while driving on a high bridge, for instance), but also for the folks staying in this Travelodge hotel in Watertown. This was the last free room in the hotel, adn the other hotels are equally booked. Turns out Watertown is home to Fort Drum, which in turn is home to the Army's 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). Originally founded as a skiing unit, they're now serving in northern Iraq and in Afghanistan. The hotels are full of parents, children, spouses, friends and sibilings of soldiers...Praying also in response to the news from 'za that her parents will probably be coming to the US during the last week of July. And praying for Tom Shepherd, long time parishoner at Messiah, whose memorial service will be on Saturday.

Another beautiful drive today, across most of Ontario past Lake Nipissing and then along the Ottowa River that separates Ontario from Quebec. I turned south just before Ottowa (every Canadian with whom I spoke would follow mention of Ottowa by the phrase "our capitol city," as if to remind Americans that Canada is a sovereign nation). The countryside abruptly shifted from craggy rocks (did you know that Ontario, Upper Peninsual Michigan and Wisconsin are all mining country? There are gold and copper mines in Wisconsin, iron along Lake Superior and huge nickle reserves in Ottowa...) to bucolic pastures, cows lazing along the Mississippi River. Yes, the Mississippi River, but not the one Huck Finn and Jim rafted down. This Mississippi is barely 30 miles long, though beautiful. As the Be Good Tanyas declare, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.



Besides the Canadian Mississippi, there were a several other memorable sights today. North of Watertown, NY, someone has erected three 20' high black metal crows, standing life-like, if outsized, in a field along the highway. And then there was the Logos Cafe, shaped like Noah's Ark:



While I didn't eat there (after all, there was only one of me, and I thought perhaps the ark might demand a pair), I did get another great road food experience. If Minnesota has the Hot Meatloaf, then eastern Canada has poutine, an incredible, heart-stopping (literally) concotion of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. Sometimes sausage or hamburger or mushrooms are mixed in as well. It is delicous, dark, heavy. There is even, for those of you who have Real Audio, an Ode to Poutine, with such memorable lines as "I saw the best stomachs of my generation destroyed by poutine...dragging themselves through the fast-food streets at dawn, looking for a fix." This region is also home to another North American invention, Thousand Island dressing, named after the beautiful islands along the St. Laurence River:



Tomorrow, an early morning drive through the Adirondacks, lunch in Petersham MA with Jason (my brother) and home by the late afternoon -- provided I remember to call the guy who my landlord gave the housekeys to!

Oh. Canada.

Sudbury, Ontario; mile 2823

I broke a self-imposed dirving rule today, going twice my 300-mile-a-day limit; in general, the smalle roads have given me space to make the emotional, spiritual and physical transition from one coast to the next. Interstate driving makes such sudden leaps. This drive has been more like a dawn -- the color changing, but slowly enough that from moment to moment you are carred along rather than jerking in fits from shade to shade. But today 600 miles because the day was so beautiful, and the driving so fine, and my stubborness to stick to schedule so great... Bunyon needs in his Pilgrim's Progress a Mr. Headstrong who marches on forward even when the straight and narrow way pauses or bends. Or having in Exodus a 13th tribe of Israel which bypassed the 40-year journey through the desert by going straight up, northeast, into the Promised Land and then sat around for a generation wondering where everyone else has gone...

Last night was another camping night (hence the lack of a 'blog entry), on the banks of Lake Superior just south the of the Apostle Islands. After setting up camp and having some hot soup, I took the inflatable kayak (still unnamed -- it's blue, bobs like a rubber duck, and travels well. Any suggestions?) out onto the Lake.

If you have only seen ordinary lakes, it might help to think of the Great Lakes as inland seas. They are vast, ocean vast, but without the salt and with an almost tropical clarity to the water (at least, that is, away from the cities). They swallow the horizon, produce great waves, and have been known to sink large ships. So it was with both joy and fear that I paddled out in the kayak. The fear part (and yes, before i continue, I did have my lifevest on) is pretty apparent -- it was dark, the waters unknown, and I kept wondering why that particular model was marked down 50%, and how quickly it would sink if it began loosing air. Would I slowly dip in the water, or would I zip around like a deflating baloon in a Warner Bro's cartoon?

The joy was three-fold. First of all, it was refreshingly cool and wonderfully quiet, two qualities sorely lacking while driving. Second, I had the anticipation of the gathering darkness and its attendant stars. The third joy was a whole suprirse. I had been looking back at shore (to the northwest), checking that I could swim the distance. I then looked behind me to the Eastern horizon, where a perfect, molten, full, solitice moon was rising golden and awesome. I floated above the deep, watching the moon transfrom herself like an alchemist soon to be poor, changing gold to silver.

Yesterday ended beautifully and began wonderfully exploring Stillwater, MN, with Elis. -- and in particular, Loome Books, a bookstore of used theological books houses in an old church and set up according to a Platonic ideal of used bookstores: not only the perfect mix of beautiful old leatherbound books, inexpensive but well-cared-for paperbacks, but well-organized but not oppressive shelving winding (without teetering piles) up stairs and in choir lofts and balconies, all illuminated by stained glass windows:


From Stillwater I head north, checking out one of the world's largest potholes -- not in the road but in an ancient riverbed, carved out of hard basalt by swirling water


and then past the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and other great sights, but particularly the warm Midwestern summer light and the fields of wildflowers


Today was largly the UP, upper penninsula Michigan, a land inhabited by Finns, pine trees, and bad puns on their regional moniker, including a bar named UP Chuck's. I wish I was kidding, but I'm afraid I'm not. It was great country to drive through -- just diverting enough, but with straight, fast roads. I did stop for a number of visits, to waterfalls and parks and Finnish stores, and in Harvey, Michigan, the Episcopal parish of Saint James the Less, known in that diocese as Little Jimmy's. Little Jimmy's has a building to match its name, and a localy ordained priest, Bruce, so in love with the church and simultaneously humbled and thrilled about the work of being a priest. We had a good long talk inside the church, about the sacraments, about community, about wearing a collar... lots of stories, and a blessing for me to have walked into Little Jimmy's.

Tomorrow might not be as early a morning as originally planned; even with the long haul today, though, I'm still a day behind schedule. Thanks be to God that I have a little buffer time. And still more stories that haven't fit in -- towns with names like Luck and Siren and Lively; river names, including Teaspoon Creek, and the realization that though I crossed into Canada, I've traversed nearly a dozen other sovereign nations, some large and some only a few hundred acres. Extra points if you can name some of those nations I might have passed through on this trip :)

He leadeth me beside...

Stillwater, MN; Mile 2017


Babe, Paul Bunyan's blue ox, in Bemidji

Greetings from Stillwater, MN, on the banks of the Saint Croix river! I've taken a southern detour today to visit a good friend from seminary, someone I haven't seen in three years. It's been a huge blessing today to see her again, an unplanned gift to the gift of time I've been given on this journey. Just past the half-way point in this eastward journey, it's also wonderful to have sabath from solitude to spend the evening talking with an old friend.

Driving today has also been very different; for one thing, the rainstorm that has been travelling eastward with me decided to spend the entire day in my company :) Here's a picture of what it was like at noon, when you would normaly expect dazzling summer sun:


The driving rain and darkness was quite claustrophobic after several days on the wide open plains. It was cold and slow and dim; welcome solace from the rain came in two forms. The first and most immediately satisfying was having a hot meatloaf -- a sandwich specialty of Minnesota, an incredibly good and thick slice of hot meatloaf between two slices of white bread, swimming soaked smothered drowned in brown gravy, with mashed potatoes. It is white-people food at its best -- rich, heavy, warm, soft, and subtle (not flavorless; subtle...) Perfect for the weather. Just writing about it makes me hungry. There was a tang to the meal, probably from the gravy, but also from the homemade meatloaf. Probably a fair bit of pork in the meatloaf as well, helping fill up my usualy vitamin P deficiency.

The other comfort was listening to John Bunyon's (not to be confused with Paul Bunyon -- see above) The Pilgrim's Progress. I don't know if any of you struggled through the book in high school -- it seemed to me back then as pompous and transparent (charachter names like Christian, Faithful, Sloth, Superstition...). Read out loud it is a much better book -- most books written before this last century are improved by being read outloud, and the older the works are the more likely that they were intended for an oral/aural audience as much as a reading audience. But this time around -- maybe because of the rain, maybe because I'm older, maybe because my own faith journey is moving, slowly, from head to heart -- this time around I've been noticing how beautifully he alegorizes the emotional challenges of faith: dispair, depression, self-justification. He opens up in story the mystery expressed so perfectly in that one brief line of Amazing Grace: "'twas grace that tought my heart to fear, and grace that fear relieved..."

And yes, there are the parts that are grating -- the gratuitious sermons against Popery, the weird anti-semitism, the self rightousness. And, in his prologue/apology, an odd belief that pearls can be found in the heads of toads (that would be a great paper topic, wouldn't it?). Speaking of toads, I will close tonight with a bit of a gruesome picture, a reminder of the insecticidal consequences of summer traffic through the land of 10,000 lakes:

Land of a Billion Mosquitoes

In Paul Bunyan's Home Town

Bemidji, Minnesota; Mile 1762



Blessed be the Holy One for the gift of Air Conditioning! :) It is a sweltering Midwestern summer night, complete with hazy amber moon, the hope of approaching rain, and mosquitoes the size of small aircraft. A perfect time to be inside in an airconditioned hotel.

I sound far grumpier then I am, though. I've had a wonderful two days, crossing through Montana into North Dakota, where I camped on the banks of the Missouri reveling in the chance to do some more kayaking. There was a tremendous, Moses-coming-down-from-Mount-Sinai, Great Plains lightning storm tearing out east from the Rockies. We're keeping about the same pace; I drove through it two days ago, last night, and this afternoon. It will probably show up again tonight; it is nice to have a companion on the journey.

This morning I woke up bright and early, driving east along small state routes. The joy of the Great Plains is that the small roads are also 65 or 70mph and straight as arrows -- but the environment is so much more luxurient. Instead of soul-crushing interstate, there is a succession of rolling wheat fields, big black limousin cattle, foals leaping along side thier parents, and homesteads in islands of green leafy trees. I have an excess of pictures from this morning, the kind of photograph that captures very little except that it is a mnemonic for the joy of the light and soft, rich greens.



And the quest for a church. I passed a number of small Lutheran churces whose service-times were either hours later than when I was passing through, or hours before. But when I drove into Minot (not pronoucned min-o', but My-noT), I picked up the yellow pages and found All Saints' Episcopal church. What I loved about sharing in the communion at All Saints' was the palpable joy. Folks were laughing and saying hello to eachother and to me as a stranger even on the way to the altar rail -- not in some scary, happy-clappy-drink-the-koolaid way, but in genuine delight of being in one another's company in the Body.

If the morning was marked by Eucharist, the evening was marked by baptism -- or at least, a swim in the headwaters of the Mississippi, Lake Itasca. I wish I had brought a bottle to take home some of the water to use at some future baptism at Messiah; starting a new life with water that marked the start of a 2,552 mile journey. It is a long, kind lake -- great for swimming after driving 12 hours in muggy 85-degree weather. And quite wonderful to be able to walk right across the Mississippi:

Wide Montana Skies

Chinook MT; Mile 961

I've moved today from purple mountain majesties right into the fruited plain. The last two days have been so beautiful that a couple times I just started singing the doxology at the top of my lungs -- a poor imitation of the constant praise that the warblers, sparrows, robins et ali were already sending up. I also spent some time cursing, dripping wet, in a small inflatable kayak driven backwards by the waves. But to start at the beginnging:

On Wednesday, had a pleasant drive out of Idaho and into the Rockies. I got to pray the daily office inside an Episcopal church that was just down the block from a technicolor garden watched over by two giant pink flamingos:



And I saw an amazing set of falls, the ones (evidently) in the movie The River Wild. I didn't get a good still-shot of the falls, but I did get a picture of some of the saw-blade art that a woman was selling by the road at the entrance to the falls:



And then, I hit traffic. Hot, dusty snar'lled construction traffic, where I was stuck behind a logging truck with a diesel engine in ill repair. I'd include the photograph, but all you would see would be black clouds of exhaust mixing with red clouds of Montana road dust. So by the time I got near Glacier National Park, one of my goals on this journey/pilgrimage, I was pretty tired and cranky. Fortunately, just short of irrational, which is the next step for me, usually resulting in driving too far or camping stupidly -- the later was almost my fate, but instead I was saved by a couple of guys in a camping store who offered to look at my campingstove and see if it was working (it wasn't; they fixed it and sold me a great summer-weight sleeping bag). And instead of irrational stumbling, the day ended beautifully with me camped in Glacier National Park in my lovely, vivid yellow and purple tent:


I had a decent dinner -- OK, it was hot and filling, if entierly lacking in flavor, and then set and watched the sun set over a lake that is nearly the twin of the loch outside of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:



The next morning, the weather threatned to turn. Stubborn Scot that I am, I inflated my kayak (which is perhaps 4 feet long, and rides on the water like a rubber duck...) and set off down the lake. It was beautiful and wonderful; I arrived at the Lodge, sat by the fire and met some vivacous Southerners (one of whom had a father who went to Andover Newton Theological School -- far removed from Hogwarts, but part of the same BTI that EDS belongs to, and not too far from Messiah). When I tried to kayak back, though, the wind had changed and kept pushing me to the north, away from camp. Jesus' warning from a few days ago, about the sign of Jonah, was in my ears and I turned around -- where the son of the Andover Newton minister gave me a ride back to camp. Ah always de-pend upon the kindness of strangers...

I had been looking forward to watching the majestic peaks of Glacier National Park. Here's a sample picture of the park in good weather:



And here's the view I had:



Part of the purpose of this journey (with its solitude, the attempt to read the Daily Office, the choice of books I listen to...) has been rediscovering prayer and awareness of God, which is easy to loose in business and noise. But the journey back also goes through a lot of superstition, fear, doubt and anxiety -- the noise I make inside my own head. So when the weather is rainy, or something breaks (and any number of things of mine broke the first couple days out), I jump to wondering what terrible awful sign it must be. I've been lucky enough to not over-indulge those fears; sometimes at my better moments I even look for the lessons I might be learning from the rain and the small setbacks. I might in fact be learning how to move forward in joy even when things don't go exactly to my plan. Which is probably a vital lesson for any parish priest to learn.

So the rain, while disapointing me in my desire for grand vistas, offered up other, unexpected gifts. There was, first of all, the beauty of the rain itself, whether the drama of clouds veiling and unveiling mountains, or the shock of lightening striking across a slate grey sky in the plains. And the rain brought about other gift: Montana, which has been in a long drought, is responding to the rain with rolling green fields, wildflowers, and rainbows. I'll close this entry for the last two days with some photographs of the gifts the rain has brought:





And of course, it didn't rain the whole time...

We're in Idaho, we're in Idaho!

Sandpoint, Idaho; Mile 488


An eponymous river...

Another story from our family cross-country journeys: I'm very young, and having been cooped up for days in the back of the station wagon I experience an overwhelming elation at having finally gotten through Montana. I'm standing on the car seat, jumping up and down, shouting "We're in Idaho, we're in Idaho!!" I'm not sure I even knew what an Idaho was...

But here I am in Idaho again, having just finished the most amazingly wonderful dinner at Cafe Trinity -- hushpuppies, copper-river salmon cooked on a ceadar plank, ahi-tuna sashimi...Here's the executive chef, who makes wonderful food while taking bets from the rest of the kitchen staff and regaling them with details of his torrid love life!


There were so many highlights today; the Grand Coolee Dam was the most disapointing (unlike the shocking height and narrow dimensions of the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coolee is more of a concrete wall -- though evidently there is a big laser light show at night...); I got to spend a great deal of time in the Colville Indian Reservation, made up of a forced confederacy of tribes from throughout the Northwest -- all relocted here, including the Pince Nez of Cheif Jospeh fame, who were relocated from Oregon via Missouri... It is strange to read the stories of battles, slaughters, forced-marches and broken promises and then wonder how almost all those stories slipped away from our mainstream national history and consciousness.

There was no loneliness in today's drive. For one thing, I was surrounded by such incredible beauty -- waterfalls, mountains, deep forests. Sometimes the view was of incredible open space and soaring hights:


And then there was this fellow, ready to rise up with his stoney bones and stride with giant steps across the Cascades:


But it was a long drive -- in hours if not in miles. I had a grinding headache most of the morning, from too much coffee and too little sleep. To encourage me along, I had the company of books-on-tape (well, on iPod, but close enough). For a couple hours I got to listen to James Earl Jones reading the bible -- great to hear the bible outloud, but frustrating that the producers decided to back Jones' basso profundo with tinny elevator-music versions of evangelical hymns... There were profound thoughts duriung the day, but now it's a quarter-to-eleven and I'm parked outside a Quality Inn (where I'm taking advantage of their wireless internet service). You'll have to wait till Thursday for the deep thunking :)

On the Road

Mile 147: Winthrop, Washington



Winthrop is an old-fashioned western town, at least in architectural reproduction -- wooden walkways, plank facades, saloons, tourists and high-speed internet access. I've been here a couple of times on family cross-country drives; the clear memory of an ice cream cone as well as the car-sickness that comes with winding mountain roads in sweletering hot weather, facing backwards (parents in the front seat of Epiphany, our Ford LTD Station Wagon with the faux-wooden siding, and Jason and Kate in the middle seat, while I was in the back with the luggage -- an ideal spot for a little kid, like a couch-pillow 'fort' made of luggage, with a changing view, lots of books to read, and warm apple juice to drink. I still can't have Mott's apple juice without bringing up memories of our annual pilgrimage from Chicago to Lopez Island).

I've only done about half the miles I wanted to cover, but may end up staying the night here -- the food options look good, if over-priced, and I'm tired out: from waking up early to catch a ferry off of Lopez, and from the emotion of saying goodbye to Mom, who sent me on my way with a Celtic blessing and her own excitement about the place to which I am going.



The drive has been beautiful so far -- rainy, which is a blessing, and through the peerless Cascade mountains. Because I am not on the interstate, I have the luxury of pulling over and taking short hikes or simply breathing in the cool mountain air and the wonder of this earth.



There is the beauty of the landscape, and there is the strangeness of what we as Americans do with that beauty. There's a song that goes "The mountain was so beautiful that this guy built a mall and a Pizza Shack./ He built an ugly city because he wanted the mountain to love him back."



Not always grim and depressing, though; we are a country full of intentional and unintentional humor, as this sign outside a gas station bears witness to:


And sometimes we find perfect ways to live in harmony with the wonder of this Creation. A couple hours into my drive, I saw an Episcopal church just off of Route 20. I pulled a U-turn and went inside the unlocked church to pray. They had built an altar out of rough-hewn wood, and placed the altar in front of a great window looking out onto the woods and pastures. On the altar was an old bible, open to the Gospel of Matthew, in the chapter where Jesus sends the 12 apostles out for their first taste of ministry away from Jesus. He sends them out just to familiar communities, among fellow Jews, and tells them to bring no purse or staff or extra cloak, depending on the generosity of strangers, and bringing peace on the houses which welcomed them. It was a perfect reading for me to hear as I start this journey to Parish of the Messiah.

Passover

In as much as Passover was the night before a great journey; anticipating neither the death of children nor am I planning on stealing my mother's jewelery! But tomorrow I say goodbye to my family and turn the car East. It's been a blessing spending a few days up here, taking walks with Mom, going out for fish tacos (and amazingly good fried oysters today --ymmmm), watching the primeval herons wing their way home past a deepening sunset.

Mom with a giant chard from our vegetable garden


And a more metalic layer of sadness, goodbyes spoken and unspoken, both to people and to places, as well as to things I didn't do (kyaking, sleeping outdoors, praying, drawing coastlands, spending more quiet time outside...). It's not a pleasant feeling -- there are logical justifications, the specialness of having so much to miss, the
realization of what a gift I have had to live out here, near family and in such a beautiful place. But the heart still aches.

The car, though, is beautifully packed, shockingly organized -- compass on the dashboard, a compartmentalized holder for my water bottles, tapes, sunscreen, trash, with a container on the floor for other necessities such as Luna bars, prayer book, and a kite. In the back seat, my luggage, inflatable kayak, and Iza's orchids. In the back, our rugs from Oaxaca and our summer clothes. I have my iPod all ready with driving music (from the Eurythmics to Nusarat Fatah Ali Kahn) and with books on tape (James Earl Jones reading the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, a collection of Dr. King's sermons, and Ira Glass's This American Life). Jason gave me some helpful advice on my route.

Tomorrow morning, we get on the ferry from Lopez Island -- Cyndie and Gary and Annalisa Keen head south to Seattle (and points beyond), while I go straight from the ferry on U.S. Route 20, headed East. I'll be on Route 20 and 2 for most of the trip, breaking to the north to go on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes before returning to upstate N.Y. on to Massachusetts. I can hardly wait!

I'm part of a religion of wanderers and travellers -- Sarah, Miriam, Abraham, Jesus, Paul, Ruth, and so many more. It is a particular joy to join with them on my own journey, towards a destination I am so looking forward to. My "Letter of Agreement" has been sent off to Messiah, and stories already pouring in through the list serve, of people on journeys of their own, caring for parents, concern for friends, grieving deaths, preparing for the next turn in the road ahead. Blessings absolutely everywhere!

Underground a Beautiful City

Last day in Seattle; brilliantly sunny, which I logically celebrated by taking the Underground Tour , something I've always wanted to do. It seems that much of Pioneer Square (downhill from Downtown, along the shore) is a landfill on top of a tidal estuary . Unsurprisingly, it was consequently muddy, full of sinkholes, and when the tide would come in the seawater would travel up the sewage pipes and out people's Thomas Crapper toilets . The solution was to re-grade the entire neighborhood, raising it upwards of 32 feet. But business and city couldn't sort how this would be done -- so the city built retaining walls on either side of the road, filled them in, and built a new road 8 to 32 feet higher than the surrounding buildings and sidewalks. After a number of people died falling off the street, merchants began building sidewalks that connected the street with the second story of their buildings. The result was a network of old underground sidewalks at the original 'ground floor' level, with the occasional 'skylight' of glass prisims looming above .

Most cities have some underground network -- Chicago had a series of small tunnels built so that young boys (the tunnels being too small for grownups) could deliver carts of coals. Back in '92 the Chicago river carved its way into the tunnels, flooding them and all the buildings connected to these tunnels. Paris has its sewers, Boston now the Big Dig , and New York once had a whole underground society of theives living beneath the warves on platforms raised between the pililngs . I had realized how many of these things I knew some trivia about, from the old wooden water pipes in Boston to the underground flood in Chicago; strange thoughts about taking on an unusual hobby or book on Underground, something a bit darker than David Maccauly's amazing, amazing book . A childhood favorite -- something fascinating about knowing there is a whole system of tunnels and ideas and spaces running unseen and unoticed beneath us.

Some odd events today, including a conversation with a woman from Mexico about how the Anglican church differs (and is similar to) the Roman Catholic church. The Rev. Mary Ann Garret, in Oaxaca, often describes the Anglican church as the Catholic church of England -- accurate, even if Rome would strenously disagree. Although evidently leaving alone the titles of the original bishoprics (there is no R.C. Archbishop of Canterbury ), the sort of akwardness that makes the U.S. particularly baffling -- a major city may have easily a dozen bishops (Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, et alia). But that way lies a digression longer than most underground tunnels...

Jibran is walking around the house in all his orangeness, happily oblivious to the fact that he will soon be put back in his carrier and taken by George and Andy -- OK, that isn't Andy Rees, but it's the image that shows up when you google his name -- to Boston, where a double bass player named Michael will pick him up at the airport and care for him until I arrive in Boston. A far better fate than spending 3000 miles in a car . Poor guy, though. He's been through a lot these last few weeks, from Rhino's death to boxes and furniture moving every day, and then this strange apartment -- and now a journey to a strange place with new people. Hope he forgives us some day.

Tomorrow, up to Lopez for then weekend, and then the open road!

Opening Day

Looking out over a blueslate Seattle sky, ferry boats crossing Puget Sound on their way to Bremmerton and Bainbridge Island. Behind me, Seattle's iconic Space Needle still points with hope towards an imaginary future. Jibran, my orange taby, is missing this spectacular view on account of his hiding in the bathtub.

We're in a new place -- my parent's apartment in Seattle. Our home -- the home Jibran has known for almost two years, and that has been my home for three -- is as empty as hermit crab's discarded shell. Yesterday the movers came and took everything away, following a three-week long process of sorting, tossing, packing, and giving away (we threw a potlatch birthday party for Iz , giving away several scores of books but also bookshelves, a couch, a TV, even many of our condiments). As I was putting some belongings in my car and putting up temproary window-tinting (for secuirty and comfort against the Midwestern sun), the barista from the Tully's told me I should have just sold everything, including the car, and bought a Harley.

It is, I suppose, a nice twist on Mark 10:21, "Sell all you have and buy a motorcycle." Tempting, man, very very tempting...

Instead, here I am with all my possesions in boxes, a cat who is hiding in the bathtub, and 3000 miles ahead of me. :) And I'm looking forward to every mile...

peace,
dsm