The first stop on my short sabbatical this summer was Atlanta, where we could spend some quality time with our grandchildren (oh yeah, and the kids) over a couple of weekends. But during the week, we drove up to Asheville, North Carolina. Part of me wanted to do something new, but there's another part that always wants to go back to that part of the world, the roads, the hills, the mountains. We have visited a few times since our son moved to Atlanta for work. We enjoy the street musicians in Asheville, the food, the Famous Bookstore, and we always drive a little part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think at first I wanted to go there because of the history of how it was built. One year we drove to Mount Mitchell. Another time we found Mount Pisgah. This year we looked at the tourist information and decided to find Linville Falls.
We knew we could get there simply by taking the Parkway, but the problem was -- we didn't know how long it would take. At least, that SEEMED like a problem at the time. So I did what I have learned to do over the past several years -- I turned on GPS. All I wanted to do was get an arrival time.
But GPS had something else in mind. It gave me directions that took me OFF the Parkway and back on the regular roads. We decided "oh well" and we went with it. We were running late anyway. But we knew that when we got to the area, we would want to find the Falls and the Parkway again, which was slightly challenging, as GPS didn't work some of the time.
I told a clerk at a convenience store my problem, and she said, "GPS doesn't like the Blue Ridge Parkway." I thought about that. In other words, GPS will not tell you that you should take the Parkway from Asheville to Linville Falls. It will give you another route (there were some interesting things on this route as well, thankfully).
When we finally found the Falls, we hiked around a bit, and decided that we didn't have time to take the Parkway all the way home. If you have to BE somewhere, it is definitely not the fastest road. There are many places to stop and get out and look around. And if you don't do that -- if you don't stop and look -- what's the point? So for most of the way we took the highway. But for a little while I wanted to be on the Blue Ridge.
I just wanted to BE there. And I thought, as we were driving, and stopping and looking -- maybe that's why GPS doesn't like it. You don't take the Parkway to GO somewhere. You take it to BE somewhere. The road itself is a place.
There is something holy about that, about considering a road which is not just a means to an end, but an end in itself. There is something holy about wandering the Blue Ridge Parkway (they call the whole 469 miles "meandering'). So much of life is getting somewhere else -- and not paying attention to where we are right now. I'm learning about mindfulness, and the Parkway seems like a place to be mindful.
After all, God is where we are right now, as well as up ahead of us, and behind us, and below and above us. Maybe it's all right to turn off the GPS and just be, pay attention, listen and wonder. Maybe it's all right to stop at the scenic outlooks, not to be in a hurry all the time.
I meant to write this earlier but I was too busy, and now my heart is heavy with the devastation that I'm seeing from hurricane Helene, lives and places wrecked, catastrophes everywhere. But God is where we are right now, here as well. In grief and work and love. May we pay attention.
