A golden blanket of leaves cushioned the path, swallowing the
sound of his footsteps. He followed the
route mainly by intuition, wandering between the blackened trunks of dead trees
and fallen branches. Each time he found
a trail marker it was a small victory that caused him to wonder who or what was
guiding him.
Down, down the hill he went, down to the lake hidden beyond
the forest of stumps and dried marsh grass. The trail curved along the ridge of the hill
and then descended, following what in springtime would be a rushing creek but now
just dent in the ground filled with the detritus of late autumn. He followed the path until it turned and
opened up along the shoreline. There he
found a recycled plastic bench with a metal frame that had been anchored with concrete
feet against the eroding waves of time.
Sitting on the bench he peered out over the lake and let his
troubled wander. A strong northeast wind
churned up whitecaps across the lake.
There were no boats out today. It
was too late in the season, too cold and rough to risk being out today. A flock of geese gathered mid-lake defying
the wind. A hint of blue sky and
sunshine to the north teased him with a promise of sunshine with no guarantees
of making it to where he sat. The
restless water reflected the shadows of trees, reflecting and refracting them
in the waves as they rolled against the shore.
The weather mirrored his mood, cold and dark and rough, any joy
he could see hiding on the far horizon well beyond his power to reach. He felt he was carrying the weight of his own
world on his own shoulders, on his own head, in his own heart. He tried to pray but the cold wind sucked the
breath and prayer from his lips. Behind
him he heard the threatening sound of branches dislodged by the wind and
crashing into the woods. Rain began to
fall, a wild mist that the wind turned into thousands of little needles that
stung his face and hands. A single word
echoed in his head: hopeless.
Maybe I should just walk into the lake, he thought. Just wade in and keep on wading until the
water reaches my waist, until it covers my shoulders and fills my lungs. But then what? Peace?
The end of feeling dragged down and defeated? Would his troubles be gone or would he just
be leaving them for someone else?
God is love, he had learned in Sunday School, and His grace
is deep and wide. Could grace, could
God, reach deep enough to find him in his despair?
Movement in the trees to his left drew his eyes. A small bird hung suspended from a branch, a
red-headed woodpecker, checking the branch for movement and looking for a meal. Its bright red head and black-and-white body stood
in contrast to the gloom that surrounded him.
He sat as still as possible, certain any movement would spook the small bird
but it was too busy searching for food to even notice him.
Not finding any insects the bird flew to some marsh grass where
small white berries hung from dying twigs.
The woodpecker pecked them off one by one and, now fed, flew away,
singing as it flew. And in some strange way he felt the weight of
his burdens lift with the bird, lift as if someone had reached down and lifted them
from him. The woodpecker’s song of
content reminded him that if God cared enough to feed this little bird that
late November morning, how much more would God care for him?
He left the bench and followed the path again, still leaf-buried
but somehow much more obvious, up and over, away from the gloom of the forest. He followed it back to his campsite with a
fire burning in the fire ring and his wife sitting in a lawn chair with her
book and a cup of coffee. And as he
settled into the chair next to her, whistling the song the woodpecker had
taught him, he thought, it is well.
