The Road That Leads Home
by Rev. Rodney Romney - February 9, 2005
I finished the fictional short story by John Updike, entitled "The Roads of Home," thought a bit about the story's theme, how familiar roads always change when you have been away for a long time, and then climbed in bed and fell asleep.
I wakened early in the morning from the grip of a vivid dream. In my dream I had been walking on a road from my childhood, the one that led from our ranch in the Little Lost River Valley to the one-room schoolhouse a mile and a half away. There was a vivid sense of unrest and urgency about the dream, which I could not pinpoint. I dismissed it and started preparing for my usual routine at a nearby gym. Beverly departed for a daylong activity with a group of women friends, and I was leisurely lacing up my shoes when a voice inside my head seemed to say, "Take the road." I looked outside and noticed that even though the road in front of our house was lined with plowed snow, it looked clear and dry. It was a gloomy and foggy day, not the kind that encourages one to leave the house if you don't have to. But the little voice in my head would not be silenced. It repeated its invitation, "Take the road."
At that moment I reconnected with my dream of the night before. Was I being invited by my subconscious, as a result of the dream, to drive through murky weather the distance of more than a hundred miles to see a lonely country road I had just dreamed about? Nonsense, I thought, the only road I'm going to take today is the one to the gym.
Feeling very satisfied with my decision, I backed the car out of the garage and headed toward town. But as I reached a fork, the direction came back, this time louder and more insistent than ever, "TAKE THE ROAD!" To my surprise I found myself turning on the highway that led across the desert in the direction of the Lemhi Mountains to the little village of Howe.
"Well, why not?" I said to myself, settling back into the seat as I drove, "I haven't been up this way for some time, and it's not like I have something else I need to do."
The fog grew thicker. It was definitely not the sort of day one usually picks for an outing. After more than hour of driving I passed through Howe, with its single store, café and bar, remembering that as a boy the rarity of a visit to Howe was always a special treat. I continued north through the heart of Little Lost River Valley, remembering some of the ranches by names of former owners and wondering who owned them now. I came to a fork which led from the main road to the country lane on which my stepfather's ranch had been located. The one room schoolhouse, which I had attended with a dozen or so students from up and down that valley, had once stood at that point but now was no more. Students from the valley are now bussed to Howe or Arco. There was no bus when I was growing up. I either rode my horse or walked a mile and a half from the ranch to the schoolhouse.
I was unprepared for the flood of memories that suddenly washed over me. I pulled off the road into the lot where the old schoolhouse had stood and sat for a few moments gazing back on a time in life that had been both painful and wonderful. At that moment the sun broke through the fog, not with a brilliant flood of light but a half-hearted warming of murky incandescence that seemed to invite me out of the car. So far, in the hour and a half I had been driving, I had passed only a few cars and had seen no one. It was as though this outing had been planned only for me, with everyone else being told to stay out of sight until this old man completed whatever it was he had been sent out there to do.
I got out of the car and started to walk down the road, in the direction of the house that had been home more than sixty years ago. It was a road I had walked many times, but this time there was no trail beaten in the borrow pit alongside the edge. There was only the hard crunch of gravel in the center or the slippery surface of ice along the edge. The fields on both sides were white with snow and deserted. I passed under a huge birch tree which I was sure I knew, only it seemed misplaced. Every step jogged loose a memory. In those fields I had driven wagon during the haying season. In that river bed off to the side I had learned to swim. In that swale my horse had bucked me off when I casually stuck him with a thumb tack. On that trail I had joined with children from other ranches to discuss the day's events, and once to wage a fight with a boy, somewhat smaller than I, who had tried to wash my face with a snowball. The geography of the place was somehow all tangled up with the past.
Then I came to the old house. My room had looked out toward the mountains. The first objects I saw each morning were the mountains. But a modern looking house had been built closer to the road, shutting off the view. Indeed the old house looked abandoned. The barn and log corrals were gone, replaced by huge tin sheds. I was reconstructing everything in my mind, remembering it as though it were yesterday.
And then it happened. As I stood there in the road, looking at the old house, remembering both the comedy and the drama of those long-ago years, I suddenly felt the presence of others. My mother, my stepfather, my grandparents who often stayed with us, the neighbors across the road, my father who sometimes dropped in to visit--all of them were gone, but all of them were somehow there. I didn't see them. I didn't talk to them. There were no words. But I knew they were there. I knew it because of the tears that sprang fresh from my eyes, tears that you only shed when you experience a reunion with someone who has been away for a long time. I knew it because I felt a sudden rush of love pouring over and through me. I knew it because at that moment the sun burst fully through the fog and bathed me and everything in its radiant light.
As I have aged, I have grown more liberal in my thinking. I have laid aside some of the religious doctrines I was once taught, and have been inclined to view them more as fancy than fact. I have grown critical of religious institutions that war with each other and fail to love all people and all life unconditionally.
But in that single moment in the middle of a well-known but almost forgotten road, I knew again that the mystery of life and death is greater than anything I can even imagine. I knew that every moment and experience of my life carries infinite meaning. Most of all, I knew that we never die, and we never really lose those we love. The loss we experience is only temporary. Death is simply a transition into another life. Like the character in John Updike's story, who got lost on familiar roads, I can say with assurance: "I know where I am. I am here!" All I have to do is take the road. It will eventually take me home.
[Rev. Dr. Rod Romney is the retired former pastor of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, CA and Seattle First Baptist Church, Seattle, WA. Posted below, under the winter picture of Romney's Idaho home, is a reflection by a friend, David Enroth (SpiritWarriorSky) on the contribution his life has made for many of us.]
posted by Rev. Rick Mitchell, PhD @ 10:33 PM
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