The journey is still here...

Back in the fall, while visiting my son, Sam, at the U. of Minnesota (sorry Badger fans), we made a trek to Minnehaha Falls, a wonderful little park in the middle of the metropolis. With the beautiful falls at the head of the park, a trail runs along the creek, emptying into the mighty Mississippi. Sam and I ventured down the mile or so to the shoreline, passing many others, engaging in the “normalcy” of nature, masking up and down with each encounter with the other people.

At the shoreline, we saw seven or eight similar “rock towers” that you see above, all presenting with delicately balanced rocks of various sizes, shapes and colors, personalities created from raw, natural elements. Where did they come from? Who made them? And why did they make them?

As Sam and I added to the natural art, there was some reassurance in knowing these towers had been built by likely many others, creating expressions of community. Some placed rocks in sadness, others in joy, still others in hope, that feeling that bridges the two. Without words, in a world of great wounding, grief, and sorrow, we were honoring connection in an environment of distance, persevering with humanity our love for each other.

This month has marked, essentially, a year of global pain, strife, and feeling lost in addition to the rest of our individual challenges. And yet, the journey is still here, we feel it in our hearts and bones. Regardless of our circumstances, we still have a path to follow that takes us fearlessly into the unknown, knowing we are not alone. We can walk it together.

In future posts, I hope to engage readers in this idea that there is hope in the journey. And along the way, we can build these little towers of stone, reminding the next wandering soul that they, too, are not alone.