The Lanterns
The oak tree grew restless, or seemed to, tossing branch and leaf around, an old man yelling at the TV.
“Something’s coming, and you’d best get ready for it.”
It feels like that.
The clouds have been low on the mountain for days, shrouding the towers, tearing off in chunks and then reforming, gray.
I’ve been up and down the road, to quiet roosts overlooking the ravens below, then plunging down into the valley on old roads steeped in memory, out to the land of big water, scrapping with petty tyrants and listening to unexpected sages, then dumping pumpkin spice flavor in gas station coffee, and coming home to stare at the oak tree, restless. Both of us.
It’s time to start reading The Hobbit again, so I am. You know, the clouds on the mountain and the faint stirring of color in the leaves that calls to you when you’re not even listening. It’s right next to the Bible on my stand. Roads are a theme.
Roads. It feels like I’m on some mysterious one, and it’s night, with fog and wolves.
Up ahead, with a glimmer, I happen upon a friend with a lantern, standing wayside. They’re always there at exactly the right time, with a little slip of paper to hand me, a piece of some puzzle, or maybe a piece of the puzzle.
“You know you’re always right on cue” I told the boxer who tells me about Jesus, another “chance” meeting at the gym. He nodded, the peace of faith shining out of a face that knows God and how to slip a blow and dish it right back hard enough to knock the sin and teeth right out of you.
“That’s right, that’s right.”
Strength is encouraging.
A boss stopped her work after a long day, suddenly not a boss but another traveler, holding a light, standing under a light in the park as the dusk gathered. “Keep listening.”
A friend sat on a bench, and told me things don’t change like “that” he said, snapping fingers in the breeze of a Sunday.
So I keep walking, looking for the next light.
Maybe you’ll be holding a lantern today. I hope so. Maybe I will be, too.
–Josh
