I Will Lift My Eyes

Nevada Rockies

About three weeks ago, I was feeling highly stressed from trying to balance school, work, and people. A life consisting of school, work, sleep, and a little guilt for never quite doing enough seemed to stretch out interminably. Browsing through pictures of the western states (yet another form of procrastination when I should have been working on a paper), I wished out loud that I could spend some time traveling across our country but knew there was no way I could make anything like that happen.

Within two days of this wish, my aunt called me and invited me to help her and my uncle move out to California. I would split the driving, and all of my travel costs were to be paid by them. Work was slow, and school was portable, so no obstacles presented themselves. Essentially, God knew my heart's desire and dropped this trip into my lap. Or, as a friend pointed out, perhaps He placed the desire in my heart because He wanted to speak to me on the trip in some way.

Travel is good for the soul. I hate to over-spiritualize things, but the long days of driving really did minister to my very unquiet spirit, and God really did seem to be speaking to me through the trip. As I traveled, I regained proper prospective on life--I am small, my problems are small, and the God who created the Kansas plains, the Colorado mountains, and the Wyoming wind is awfully big.


People warned me that Kansas would bore me. I was a little bit apprehensive of the open plains, because growing up in wooded New England has given me a small case of reverse claustrophobia (Is there a term for that?). However, I thoroughly enjoyed the monotony of grass, sky (so much sky! How do people stay on the ground and not float away?), and strange-looking-irrigation-robot-things. The sameness soothed my nerves and reminded me of the Unchanging One: "I am Jehovah, I change not."

As much as I enjoyed the novelty of the prairie, the open spaces did lose a bit of their charm by the time we were well into Colorado. Just as their continuity began to wear on me, the Rockies appeared. I cried. I had no idea how majestic they would be contrasted with the prairie and high desert. "I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved."


Wyoming was my favorite state. The combination of mountains, sky, and wind was so beautiful it hurt. I encountered power like I never have before--we drove through fifty mph winds that knocked tractor-trailers over along the highway (The helpless trucks reminded me a bit of the helplessness of tipped cows, for some reason.) and caused the shadows of passing clouds to fly past us on the highway. When we stopped at a rest area to get a break from the wind, I could just barely move against the wind and could not breathe if I faced into it. Poor Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Lori were a bit stressed, but I have rarely enjoyed anything so much in my life. I've always enjoyed wind, and the sheer exhilaration of the speed and strength of an unseen force made me giddy with joy. The truckers huddled at the rest stop amusedly watched me, the "reserved one", run and stagger and shout and laugh out loud for pure happiness as the wind pushed me around.

After we left our shelter and headed down out of the mountains, Aunt Lori reminded us of another unseen force: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Should I be expecting the same degree of spontaneity, joy, freedom,and satisfaction while being directed by the Wind? Food for thought...


Remember that Shakespeare bit about sleep knitting the 'raveled sleeve of care? I could feel travel healing up my internal unravelings. Despite pressing deadlines (two term papers and an exam due the week of the trip), as we drove for hours upon end and as I flew back, I had an almost physical sensation of something in my core moving back into place. Frazzled nerve endings shrank back into their proper places, and I felt as if God were telling me, "I knew you needed a break, I heard your desire, and I knew that the trip would help you. I created this vast country. I created you, as well, and I am taking care of you. I, Jehovah, change not, am your helper, and am working even when you can't see Me. "

Now I am home again. Still facing the challenges of juggling full-time school, full-time work, and living with a full-time family that I love dearly. The stress will pile up again, but God knew exactly what I needed this last time around. He's probably able to figure out what I need next time life gets too big.

The people in the cities

A man said, Why, why does travelling
in cars and in trains make him feel sad,
A beautiful sadness.
I've felt this way before.
It's the people in the cities you'll never know.
It is everything you pass by,
wondering, will you ever return?

~Innocence Mission


My mind contains quite a large gallery of faces. Strangers' faces. I recorded the earliest that I can now recall when I was about six years old. I add new ones all the time. Most of the pictures are quite vivid still, but some are so faded that I can't quite pull them into focus and just remember what it felt like to see them.

These faces are the faces of people whom I have never really met but have only seen or talked to in passing. I haven't the faintest idea who most of them are, but each one is etched in my mind as someone I wish I could know. And, yes, I do feel sad that I do not know them. Sometimes I can tell that someone is going to be added to my collection, but, more often than not, I don't "recognize" them until they're gone.

Faces added over the past years include a little girl in K-mart (this is the faint one from age six). Tall, bearded, French-speaking Jewish brothers, who perhaps were twins, seen at a violin recital in Jerusalem. A smiling girl with messy blonde hair who was auditioning for the part of Anne at the Palace Theater eight years ago.

The lady who looked just like Yoda. The sandy-haired kid who looked like he should be in school but sat instead in the Pizza Hut in a tiny prairie town with sturdy looking farmers who wore flannel shirts, greasy baseball caps, and lots of stubble. The frightened-looking Hispanic woman and child being yelled at by their father and husband in the hats and gloves section of Caldors twelve years ago.

The girl who toured the bell towers of Notre Dame with me. She spoke no English, and I could not figure out what her language was after ruling out German, Italian, and Spanish. Both solo travelers, we took turns taking touristy pictures of each other with the other's camera and communicated with smiles and sign language. We never took a picture together.


I'm from New England. I don't approach strangers. I feel uncomfortable down south or out west or anywhere where I have to emerge from my shell and talk to my "neighbor." And I like being the way I am, thank you.

Sometimes, though, I wonder what I'm missing.