This morning’s darkness is no match for the car’s headlights going down the street. My neighbor’s solar lights, as well as my own, push back the night to define boundaries of sidewalk and garden. Well-marked paths, these; you can’t miss them. I suppose many things must be taken into account when planners are mapping out streets and roads and highways. But sometimes I wonder–whose were those first feet that walked along the paths we travel today? Who was brave enough to stride through shadowy woods long before there were any roads to follow?
The other day, my brother mentioned something we took for granted when we were children but I hadn’t thought of for years. Do you ever have that experience–something is so much a part of you, you don’t even notice or think about it until your memory is jogged and you say, “Oh, yes! I remember that.” Anyway, he mentioned the trails we used to find, going through the woods. To people who have lived their whole lives in the city, following city sidewalks and prescribed walking trails, this may seem odd but I can only tell you that out in the thickly wooded areas where I grew up, city ways had not made much of an inroad.
Country children, at least in my day (now I’m sounding really old) knew quite a bit about the woods. We knew how the tree bark felt, rough and cool under our hands, how the moss that grew under those trees was as green as an emerald and as thick and soft as a carpet. We knew the tang of fresh air which carried with it the scent of moist, damp earth. We knew the smell of wood smoke and heard the hammer of a woodpecker far above us in a dead tree. And, we knew those trails that led between rocks, around trees, by the bank of the creek. Who made those paths through the woods? Long ago Indian feet? Maybe. Small animals, who knew the best and safest way to travel? Possibly. Or perhaps they were made by neighbors visiting neighbors or making a trek toward town for supplies. You see, not all that many years ago, some people did not depend upon cars or even horses to get to where they needed to go. They walked.
I wonder, figuratively speaking, what paths we follow today? Do we walk along the trails others have made before us? Do we blaze our own? What lies at the end of the journey? And, most importantly, are we leaving a plain pathway which is safe for others to follow?
Cherokee
Along the river, dark and deep, on silent feet he came;
He called the hills and hollows home and called the birds by name.
He knew the secrets of the woods, each animal, each tree;
He moved as one with wind and rain, the quiet Cherokee.
–Blanche Day Manos
You could easily make this into a devotional.
See you Wed.