Sabbath Road

First Light Laura Duguay Have you ever lain awake waiting for dawn to break?  Waiting for that first light to make it to the corner of your being?  It can be an unsettling feeling... wondering if the dawn will come... wondering if the sun will break its way through the clouds of doubt and despair. I've known a few such mornings in my life... and my response has alway been the same: get up and get going.  My attitude is I believe similar to that of Anne Lammott who writes: Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up. Just show up. Bring your best self. Do the right thing. Dawn will come... and it may come from within... for as another one of my heroes, Carrie Newcomer shared on her Facebook page this morning: There is a light within you, Quiet and luminous, Resting and restless, Abiding in the secret. It is what opens our hearts to...

“We make the road by walking...” This phrase, the theme of Brian McLaren’s closing reflection at the upcoming Wild Goose Festival is stuck in my head.  I find myself pondering it from so many different perspectives: the road Anna and I have walked for the past 25 years; the road I have walked in ministry for the past 22 years; the road I have walked for the past 8 years as Chaplain in a prison; and the road I and other have  embarked upon in the provision of Chaplaincy services through Kairos Pneuma Chaplaincy Inc. (KPC Inc.)  “We make the road by walking...”  There are so many truths in that short sentence! We.  We make the road together.  Not “I”, not “you”, but we.  We together make the road.  I imagine a group of people sometimes following one or the other, sometimes walking two abreast, occasionally three or more abreast as they seek to find their way... and other times they trust in the one at the front and the path becomes well tramped...

I was up at 5AM and packed up my stuff.  It felt good to be heading home.  It had been a grand trip and there are not many motorcycle trips where you can say that in seven days you only had 2 hours of rain!!  We had luck!! I wandered downstairs and put the kettle onto boil - saw the fresh bread and could not resist!  Two slices with some jam on them sure hit the spot!  I read the departure note from Walter and could not find words at the moment to reply. I drank my coffee and watched the morning unfold in Walter's front yard - hoping to see a moose or two (there had been two in the yard the day before and I am told there were two there later on the morning we left!).  No moose sighting for me though!  As before, the only moose I saw in Newfoundland were on plates... I checked my email and caught up on the news and make a second cup of coffee.  Al wandered down, used the washroom and then went back up to bed - checking with me as ...

The morning came soon enough... I woke up at 4AM and then again at 5AM and at 5:30AM I decided it was time to go.  As quietly as I could I gather up my stuff and loaded the bike - trying hard not to wake Danielle and Jake (I hope I succeeded in this guys and you got to work in your backyard today!). It was still dark as I left so I took it very slow through town - taking time to stop and wash the headlight and windshield and have a cup of coffee at a gas station.  Eventually dawn broke and I set out in earnest.  Unfortunately it was still not light enough to warrant a drive to Shoshone Fall.  Jake said this is was the one place in the Twin Falls area that was worth visiting.  This spring they had had the most water volume over the falls in many years.  Too bad I didn't get to see it... I did however get to see the sun rise in the east.  This made my day.  I am a morning person and I love seeing the day break.  I stopped a couple of times ...