4am, Logan Airport. Today is our anniversary.
Twelve years ago, today, we would wake up preparing to begin the journey of marriage. This morning, my alarm was set for 1:45am in preparation for a journey of a different sort: catching the 2:30am bus and then several planes on my way to Cochrane, AB for a week-long retreat that will bring this brief sabbatical season to a close.
Airport lobby. Grabbing a breakfast burrito from an Asian food court restaurant. This is the epitome of globalized non-place.
Arrived. Some 20 hours of bus, airports, airplanes and rental car later, here I am. Those labored hours of non-place, in order to arrive at THIS place. To what purpose, word or end will I have found myself here?
Draw near, Lord Jesus.
Staring into the heart of the mountainous northern West, storm clouds pile up against and cascade over the immoveable peaks, sheets of rain and lightning fall upon the foothills, visible from miles away as I approach. The storm is made small by the boundless horizon of its chosen backdrop. Evergreen forests pile into the fertile valleys carved by the rivers, draining the hill country and cutting the landscape; scars of green, worked deep into the plains by virtue of time and the persistent force of gravity.
Who or what is it that I seek in coming to this big, striking country so many miles from home? The Lord knows the purposes of my opaque heart better than I. My prayer is that whatever my purposes may be, that HIS purposes will govern and direct the days ahead.
Lord, teach me to pray?