Tales from the road, Part II

From Salem, Virginia:

It's amazing what a blessing dry pavement is.

This is the third day of my cross-country trip, and the second in which most of the day was spent without rainfall. I'm grateful: I wouldn't much like driving the twisting turns of the Apppalachians (even on the interstate), with the trucks flying past, were I doing this in the rain! (Although I may get that dubious priviledge tomorrow....)

The morning began in central Tennessee, not quite up into the Smoky Mountains, but high enough that the air was cool and dry as I left. Pulling out onto I-40 eastbound, I marvelled at the mists hovering in the "hollers" and on the rivers as I passed. Throughout the morning the air was cool enough to enjoy driving with the windows down rather than turning on the air. Traffic was light, and it was an easy drive up into the Great Smokies, past Knoxville and up into Virginia, where truck traffic picked up substantially.

As did the mountains.

As one drives the length of I-40, to I-81, there comes a point when the very bones of the mountains can be seen, upthrust through the soil near the road. Those mountains are old; some of the oldest on earth. Yet jagged slivers, six to ten feet tall, stand sentinel near the highway. Further back, old cuts through the mountains, where the mountains made way for the highway, can still be seen past kudzu-draped hardwoods. Turn after turn opens vista after vista, with each showing mountains behind mountains behind more mountains. And with each turn, one feels smaller, and punier, and younger, and more insignificant.

Or not.

For all of this...all those valleys, all those mountains, all that beauty, all those forests, were created not for their own sake, but for ours. All of it is there for our stewardship, for our care, for our joy. It is no surprise that many of the saints, such as Seraphim of Sarov, chose their hermitages out in the forests, among the giant trees, amidst that beauty that cannot but turn the mind to the Garden of Eden and its intent as a gift from God to His people.

Get out there. Go breathe some mountain air. It's good for you.

Blessings,

Mary Brigid