A few weeks ago we had a
songwriting retreat through my school. We went to the YMCA in Winter Park, Snow
Mountain Ranch. It’s a familiar place to me because I’ve spent two summers
working there while doing a summer program with the Navigators. One morning on
our retreat, we went to a clearing and outdoor chapel called Columbine Point
that overlooks a valley.
We had a few minutes to think quietly to ourselves and
just pay attention to our sensory input; visually, aurally, etc. And as I
looked towards the aspen grove to my left, I was reminded of a time four years
ago when I wandered in there. Unable to stay away, I followed a ghost of myself to the same place I wandered four years earlier.
It was a very different
feeling, because in my memory, the sky was clear, the sun was up, and there was
a cool breeze. Now the ground was cold with a thin layer of snow that had
dusted the ground the night before. Now, I was in the same place, four years older,
trying to uncover a memory beneath layers of dusted snow. I remember enjoying
the day, smiling at the weather and beauty of where I was, and content with
some sort of revelation I had received. Some sort of truth that I needed to know,
that I wanted to remember. To solidify it in my brain, I decided to carve it
into a tree stump I had seated myself on. Actually, it wasn’t a stump, it was
an entire tree trunk that had fallen over at some point. I knew that this
carving wouldn’t last, and that I didn’t even know how long that tree would be
there since it was dead and its roots unearthed, but I knew carving it would at
least allow me to remember it, carved, permanent, somewhere. I didn’t have a
pocket knife or anything sharp to use except my pen, and I think I even colored
in the text I was writing. The memory seemed so clear, everything about the
moment and the day. I remember dried tears on my face. I remember the feeling
of contentedness, of resting on something that seemed permanently true. And
now, I can’t remember what it was. It was like there was a message that I knew
I needed to remember, that was so close within my grasp, so vague in my memory
but so present. And yet, I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t rediscover it. I made
fresh footprints in the snow and walked around, searching for some sort of hint
or reminder. I even wondered if it might still be there. I saw what looked like
the same tree, enormous, hedged in by several branches sticking out from all
directions, but it was covered in a wet layered of snow.
Even if it was the
same tree, my message would be buried under the snow, and also under four years
worth of deterioration. Would it even be legible? Unwilling to frantically
destroy the beauty of the scene before me, I decided not to dig physically,
only mentally. And I couldn’t retrieve what I was looking for. Hadn’t I written
it down somewhere in my journal? Could the message really be irretrievable?
Discouraged,
and even more lost than I was when first walking into the aspens, I made my way
towards a trail leading back to the clearing.
Finally, it was nice to walk on a
solid path instead of the overgrown and unlevel grass that was soaking my shoes
with moisture from the snow. As I looked down, I found dozens of little spurs
that had caught on my jeans, jacket, and sleeves.
Just typical, I thought to
myself. An exact metaphor for how I was feeling. I was looking for a message I
needed to tell myself, something I was saving for myself, and when I go
searching, I come out empty-handed with spurs from my search. And one by one I
had to pick them off. Oh perfect metaphor. It is time for me to pick off one by
one the spurs that I have collected over the years and continue to search for
the truth I needed to remember. I know it’s in me somewhere. I wrote it once, so
I knew it once. How lost could it really be? And as lost as I might have felt
then, how lost could I really be? How
knows me better than me?
Somehow,
this experience really jossled me. But it also reminded me that I do have a
past, worth examining. That I know things that I’ve forgotten, and it’s worth
searching for.
I looked in my journal from that summer and I couldn't find anything about what I carved into that tree. But I feel confident that somewhere in there, I know what I'm supposed to know. And at the right time, it will come to mind.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it. Isaiah 30:21
