You Can't Be Lost If You Still Hear Traffic

We can’t be lost if we still hear traffic!

That’s what I was told by my beloved as we carelessly strolled off the beaten path of a hike we took while on retreat.  The morning was warm, and moving toward humid.  We decided to revisit a path we had walked a few years back that ran along a creek and eventually emptied into the Great Lake Erie. 

We crossed the highway leaving our hermitage and the monastery behind.  We walked side by side down an asphalt driveway and then turned onto a marked path that took us deeper into the woods, and eventually a long side a stream of flowing water.  We were able to walk along the low flats and see how tree roots , the sediment rock, and years of geological changes had woven intricately into one another.  “Skeeters” scooted across the surface of the creek and tiny minnows kissed out water bubbles, darting in and out of river rocks.

As we walked and observed, we talked the way we do with each other, about life and what we were reading during our retreat stay.  We pointed to a cluster of sediment and remarked how the browns and grays would bleed marvelously together with watercolor paints.  “Look at the sky between the open tree tops!  If God painted something like that would God think it was good or is that extra brush stroke an error?”

As we continued to walk and talk and observe, we moved away from the stream and followed a path labeled “Boy Scout Troop Project,” carved out on a wooden marker that was old and crusted with mold. I wondered as we began to step over broken logs and limbs if the path really still existed.  I was assured by my beloved that as long as we still heard traffic, we were moving in the right direction.  The path narrowed into a foot trail that could have been made by a forest animal, a deer, or woodchuck.

The hike became a struggle and I picked out a good old walking stick that kept me steady as I went.  At one point I began to quote Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken” …two roads diverged in a yellow wood…  it bent down in the undergrowth…  Oh yes, there was undergrowth, and overgrowth, and all kinds of three leafed foliage.  “What does poison ivy look like?”  I asked.  No reply.  We came to a small ravine and agreed upon crossing back over, as that was the direction the traffic was heard.  My walking stick was a blessing as it steadied me over the slick muck and into denser thickets.  I questioned the sound of the traffic.  “Are you sure you hear traffic?”   We stopped and listened.  Yes.  We heard traffic.  It was in the direction of the bramble bushes. 

As we pushed our way through a bramble bush, a branch swung back and caught my arm.  I flinched.  “Ow!”  That hurt!  I was reminded of Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa,” when the lion attacked her oxen and she went after it swinging a bull whip, straight into the brambles and thorn bushes.  How brave she was!  I am not brave, and I do not like these brambles. “Are you sure we are going in the right direction?”  I asked again as mosquitoes buzzed my ear.  

And then I heard a voice in my head say to me, “Do you not trust your Beloved?”  There’s a saying that we are never lost because God knows exactly where we are at all times. 

As we pulled ourselves out of the dense forest and closer to the sound of the traffic, we realized we were indeed just a few feet from the road.  We had to hoist ourselves up a steep ditch, but there we were, out under the open sky, much to our chagrin, only about 100 feet from the monastery on the other side of the road.

We made our way back to the hermitage, kicking off our hiking shoes, chuckling as we sat down on the wooden deck, relieved to be safely back where we started. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

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And this is poison ivy: