Being married to a forester turned land sales guy for almost 45 years, I have had my share of riding the backroads. It’s one of my favorite pastimes to do with him. And whereas I might be totally lost and wouldn’t be able to find my way home if my life depended on it, he knows the land and roads well.
Last week provided not one but two opportunities to ride. The first was in a north westerly direction where the roads became hilly and curvy and the dirt red and slippery. Where every church was named after a nearby creek and had a graveyard tucked up under it. Where signs along the road were ones attached to barns that read something like, “Pop’s Garage,” obviously given to him by a grandchild, or “Do not park in front of this door!” scribbled in huge letters across a large garage door. It was a land where labor is hard and community good. Where country animals and birds like chickens, horses, goats, sheep, pigs (that were NOT for sale according to the sign), cows, and even a miniature Shetland pony abound.
The following day was a morning trip that also led us in a westerly direction where every field was recently harvested cotton, corn or sorghum. And where when farm land stopped, pine trees and hardwoods took their place. When one talks about being in the boondocks, we were there.
There’s not a lot of conversation that goes on. No music or news to interrupt the silence. Just the enjoyment of creation and of being together. But as we crossed the Flint River and were passing the bottom and overflow, I casually said, “If I wanted to kill somebody, this would be a great place to do it.” “Got anybody in mind?” my man asked. “Not at the moment,” I replied. “But, seriously, you could just throw a body down there and the swamp critters could have a feast. No one would ever find it.” I probably watch too much NCIS and other crime shows.
As we continued our journey a little further, he took a couple of more turns taking us even farther from civilization. It was here I said, “You really are taking me out here to leave me, aren’t you?” To which he too quickly replied, “No, there’s the river bottom for that.”
All that to make the humorous point that we really in the middle of nowhere. It was wild, rural and quiet. But most definitely beautiful. The air was crisp; the temperature never reaching above freezing with the wind making it feel even colder. I made the comment how ponds and lakes look so much more inviting on such days and he explained why. (I’m married to an amazingly smart man.)
But there was one scene that will forever be etched in my mind and retained in my heart.
We turned down a winding dirt road and had been riding some distance when we crested a hill. As we did, there to my right was the most beautiful sight I had seen in a very long time. Cows. The setting couldn’t have been more grandeur. The sky was a cold January blue-blue. The hills before me were more green than they should have been. The pasture that held the cattle was lush. But, oh, the cows. Beautiful. Black. Silky. Even the weather worn wooden feeding troughs and the blue buckets from which some ate only added to the incredible color scheme and breath taking scenery. It was nothing short of heaven for me.
BEAUTY. That’s my word for 2024. And this particular day I found it in a meadow of grazing cows. I was breathless. Beauty has a way of doing that.
Beauty is also unpredictable. John O’Donohue writes concerning beauty, “… a threshold we had never noticed opens, mystery comes alive around us and we realize how the earth is full of concealed beauty.” Indeed, the majesty of beauty is its gracious wholesomeness, and I experienced nothing less that day. Normally I would have retrieved my phone and tried to capture the moment. But I’m learning that junctures in time such as this cannot be captured. They can only be experienced and savored, because beauty does not linger. It only visits.
Read that again: Beauty does not linger. It only visits. To have spent my time trying to “capture the moment,” I would have lost the moment. Besides, I do not need a photo on my phone to recall this eternal moment that became mine on that icy cold January morning. It found a place in me that will live on. That’s what beauty does.
No doubt I received an eternal embrace that morning from the One Who is Beauty Himself … on a dirt road that led to a pasture of grazing cows. Who would have ever thought?
O Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness… Ps. 96:9
Thanks be to God for this “ordinary moment” on a backroad.
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