Thursday, November 01, 2007

Seeking Solitude

Through careful analytical self-examination, I've discovered that a true relaxing day can't really occur at home anymore...at least not during the school year. It's not that I don't enjoy people, because I sort of have to as part of my job, but there comes a point where I don't want, and sometimes can't, engage with people anymore.

Wednesday was Bryan's Day of Prayer, and having things to attend to on campus, the day featured very little prayer of any kind. I slowly began to feel myself close up inside and close off to the world around me. And I began to wonder if I'd lost focus on what I am doing and why I do it. There's a certain feeling I come across from time to time that can only weakly be described as a "lostness." So today I turned off my cell phone (true liberation) and set off to find a place where no one would find me.

I headed north on highway 27 and came to one of those gas station/Subway/another smaller food chain establishment that is really only inviting in the South. Grabbing a sandwich, I kept moving west of the town of Spring City, took a sharp left onto a rather ominous-sounding "Shut-In-Gap Road" and snaked my way up a dilapidated mountain road and into the strange and magical area known as "Luminary."

In truth, Luminary is only strange of its own accord and not really magical. The mysterious element comes purely from the storytelling its odd nature encourages. The area doesn't really have a town-center or even a "community" center, but is rather a collection of small dirt roads scurrying off into wooded darkness, rundown houses and trailers, junk heaps, farm animals and lots of untouched land. Somewhere along the way on this road is the Stinging Forks Pocket Wilderness, which features Stinging Fork Falls conveniently, one of the prettiest bits of nature I've ever seen.

Being that I had passed less than half a dozen cars since leaving Spring City, I ventured a guess that this might be an ideal place for solitude and silence, and my expectations were completely met. The small parking area was empty when I arrived, and pleasantly enough, I didn't see another soul the entire time (just because a parking lot is empty doesn't mean you should expect to not run into someone in Luminary).

Stinging Forks' waterflow wasn't the greatest, but its canyon-like location at the bottom of a sharp descent made for a quiet afternoon of reading Scripture, prayer, staring at a blue sky, reminiscing about good times and anticipating future ones. The cascading water over the exposed rock of the falls often called to mind Ephesians 2:10's words that the believer is God's workmanship, a work of art, a "poema", in progress that takes time to create. And it made me wonder what this area looked like over time as the water continually wore a path over the rock and eroded away earth to create beauty.

I suppose the Christian life is a constant state of erosion, where God is stripping away layers of selfishness, pride, lust, greed, anger, etc., in order to bring us closer to the image of Christ and redeem us from this fallen world. And though we could think that our glorified "poema" will only be viewed in Heaven, is it too much to think that maybe God is revealing some of the art today in this mortal world, through creation and through his own children? I couldn't help thinking so today, sitting on a weathered rock in Luminary.