Way Down the Old Plank Road: History and Faith Under Our Feet

Footbridge on the path behind Faust Park. Photo by Steve Givens

I went for a short hike last weekend in the beautiful, hilly, wooded area behind St. Louis County’s Faust Park, located just off the busy, four-lane, suburban neighborhood-lined Olive Street Road. Less than a quarter-mile off the noisy road I slipped silently into the woods and back in time. Entering the canopy of ancient oaks and elms, I knew I could have been walking where Native Americans and pioneers tread hundreds of years ago.
The narrow, rough path through the woods is contemporary and no doubt made by park rangers and summer workers, but the land belongs to another time and to generations of walkers, workers, hunters and gatherers. As I completed the mile loop through the woods and emerged on the other side of the park and just a stone’s toss west of the traffic-filled road where I started, I came across a historic marker that brought me up short. It read:

Pioneer Path
Olive Street – Central Plank Road

This road was first a buffalo trace and a Native American Trail; then a widely used dirt road and a vital river-to-river connection for the early pioneers pressing westward. In 1851, first covered with oak planks to improve it and was called the Central Plank Road. [I’m not responsible for the bad sentence structure on the sign…]

And here’s the thought that came to my mind: How easy it is in our age of constant movement and information to forget that others have come before us. How simple to believe that the “here and now“ is the only reality that matters. We like to think of ourselves as independent  — as individuals who create our own trails and invent our own lives. And that’s true only up to a point. For the truth is that we begin our own journeys at starting points created by those who blazed trails before us. Whether those people were our own ancestors, the pioneers and missionaries who “pressed westward” or the Native people who have called the land their home for much, much longer, we walk on ground every day made sacred by generations of blood, sweat and tears.

The more we drive our cars and sit at computers and the less we walk and really look at the world around us, the more likely it is that we will forget this obvious fact. The slightly scary part of this whole worldview is the crucial role that every single one of our ancestors played in getting us to today. If not for their lives and loves, their good decisions and their bad, their moments of both courage and cowardice, we do not live and breathe. If my Irish or German ancestors had gotten off the boat and moved south instead of west, their world and the people they chose to love and continue the family line with are different — and I do not exist. It’s mind boggling and, yet, in the midst of it all I see not chance but God and a life of meaning and purpose.

We’re all here because we have been called to be. What we do with that one life is our vocation, our response to the call of God and the echo of generations of those on the road before us.

Lyle Lovett writes of this interconnection of generations in his song, “Family Reserve”:

William and Catherine Eickmeyer, one of the sets of my great-grandparents.

And there are more I remember
And more I could mention
Than words I could write in a song.
But I feel them watching
And I see them laughing
And I hear them singing along.

We’re all gonna be here forever
So Mama don’t you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve.

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Standing Still and Learning to be Astonished

photo by Steve Givens

We are all waiting patiently, but spring has not fully sprung here in eastern Missouri. It has teased us a bit, has shown us a few sprouts and given us a handful of warm days, but it’s not quite ready to fully bloom. Or if it is, it’s keeping that secret to itself.

Yesterday, despite the gloom and the threat of rain, I decided to go for a walk, camera-in-hand, through a small conservation area just a mile or so from my house. It’s a beautifully simple piece of land dedicated to the state in the name of someone’s loved one (August G. Beckemeier) that occupies a virtually untouched 54 acres that lies between a busy north-south road and the bottom lands that edge the Missouri River as it cuts between St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. As I got out of my car in the parking lot and walked toward the footpath, I remembered well the last time I was there, late last fall, when most of the flowers had ceased blooming and the green was gone from the trees and grasses. Despite my spring-filled thoughts and hopes, it didn’t look that much different yesterday.  That thought, combined with the fact that the sun was hidden behind thick, menacing clouds, didn’t bode well for me as a photographer. Still, I trudged on, hopeful for moments of brightness and illumination, recalling the words of the wonderful Cape Cod poet, Mary Oliver:

photo by Steve Givens

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

The older I get, the more I think that is exactly my work and my call — to stand still and learn to be astonished a little more often. For our lives and our work rushes by us and whirls around us at dizzying speeds, and when we don’t stop to pay attention and be mindful the world around us never comes fully into focus. We may see well enough to get through our daily work without hurting others and ourselves but, oh, we miss so much.

If winter and early spring teach us anything, it’s that there’s so much out there that can only be seen when the world is trimmed back a bit. We see things this time a year that we never noticed before because they were buried in the underbrush, like a long ago abandoned piece of farm machinery now turned a miraculous shade of orange by the magic of time, water and air. Or the exquisite dried husk of a once beautiful wild flower. Or immaculately white fungi growing on a log far off the beaten path. Or distant water-filled tractor tracks streaming like molten metal through a farm field. All these gifted moments were mine just because I took the time to stand still and be astonished.

All of this led me to yet another poet, this one long dead, that priest-poet of the Oxford Movement, Gerard Manley Hopkins. In his poem, “God’s Grandeur,” he writes:

photo by Steve GIvens

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.

And later in the poem…

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

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My new book released: Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith

The cover of my new book!

Just a quick post to say that my collection of essays about facing disease and treatment with faith is about to hit the virtual and physical bookstore shelves.

The publisher’s catalog reads:

Here, after three years of chemotherapy, Steve Givens describes his experiences of pain, sickness, confusion, and sadness, but also his profound sense of renewal and spiritual re-birth. He reveals that he has chosen the way of faith and God because he knows of no other way that brings peace and a reason to go on. This is a beautifully told story of struggle and pain, but ultimately of peace and acceptance, a wonderful resource for all who are facing chronic illness and its treatment.

For more information on the book, see the Faith & Chemo section of my blog or click on the chemotherapy category to read excerpts from the book.

More to come. Peace & healing…

Steve

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In the Beginning

Sunrise in Mexico, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

We all have our ideas of how the world came into being. I like to think God was having a good time when that first light was cast…

The idea was at once captivating and ludicrous.

And as he grew more excited
his enthusiasm made him smile.
A huge sheepish grin spread across his aged face
and somewhere deep in his gut
there began a gentle rumble.

The laughter welled up inside him
and he hissed and sputtered
like a child at church
who doesn’t want to laugh but can think of nothing else.

Finally
knowing he could postpone the moment no longer
he stood
placed his hands on his hips
took a deep breath of his good air
and then the laughter and words poured forth
like a river bursting its banks
spreading quickly over the darkness:

Let there be light.

The play of Mexican light. Photo by Steve Givens, 2009

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Finding the Sacred in the Ordinary

[an excerpt from a work in progress: “Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith.]

Holy is the dish and drain, the soap and sink, and the cup and plate,
and the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile, showerheads and good dry towels, and frying eggs sound like psalms, with bits of salt measured in my palm. It’s all a part of a sacrament as holy as a day is spent.
–    Carrie Newcomer

I was driving to work one day last week and, when I was almost to my office, I realized that I didn’t remember a thing about the drive. I remembered backing out of my driveway and turning onto the main road that would lead me toward the university, but that’s all I remembered. I had been so lost in thought and in the business and busy-ness of my day that I failed to notice anything along the way. No stoplights, no trees, no people, no cars around me. How I arrived safely I’ll never know. It was like I was on autopilot. And that experience of mindless driving, I thought, is exactly how I so often find myself plunging ahead through life, unaware that all around are signs and moments of God’s presence and grace.

The sacred in an ordinary lollypop. Chinendega, Nicaragua, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens.

It’s relatively easy to recognize the things in our lives that we have come to know as holy or sacred. If asked to list these elements of life, many of us would quickly rattle off words like church, scripture, God, mass and sacraments. We might even branch out further from these distinctly religious ideas and objects and include words like family, children, grandchildren and friends. We might even recall those special moments in our lives when God seemed especially close – perhaps standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, listening to a favorite piece of music or observing a work of art. We might think of holy days and holidays. We might recall weddings and births and even deaths. Certainly all these experiences can be seen as sacred to us.
But there is also sacredness in the seemingly ordinary moments of my life that, like my drive to work, all too often passes by in a noisy blur without much notice. These moments can be fleeting and seemingly meaningless, but when we take the time to reflect and allow ourselves to live a more examined inner life, we can begin to see that the sacred is all around us.

Departure: The sacred in a moment of sadness. Chinendega, Nicaragua, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t live in a constant state of spiritual bliss, always aware that God is in the room with me and that everything I do is part of a grand sacrament of ordinary life. Indeed, a week or a month can go by when I don’t feel this (or remember to sense it) at all. But I do believe we are all called to this way of living, and we are perhaps especially called to it if we find ourselves facing serious disease and health issues. For when we allow ourselves and our lives to be drawn into the realm of the sacred and the divine, then even our pain can take on a semblance of the sacred and our days of chemotherapy can transform into sacramental moments of sacrifice, prayer, worship and even grace.

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Later Thanksgiving day, November 25, 2009

One last leaf of autumn, Missouri Ozarks, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

As I head toward turning 50 just after the first of the year, I sometimes sense what feels like creative energy and a multitude of ideas mixed with a touch of fear bubbling up inside me. The creative energy is good, of course. The fear might be good, too, but it can be crippling. The fear, I guess, is that I won’t be able to act on all the energy and ideas. That’s a stupid fear. Just push forward. Forget the fear.

As a writer and songwriter, I can tell my stories and hope and trust that someone will see a grain of truth in them–a semblance of something real that maybe they have felt themselves. If they believe in God they may recognize their own divine experiences in my stories. If they do not or do not yet know if they believe or not, perhaps they will still glean something from me that points them to their own discovery of God and faith. I don’t preach, but I can’t help but reflect what I hold most true.

So back to the lake. All around me the sights and sounds of late autumn remind me that nature takes these last few moments before the onslaught of winter to prepare and gather. Puffy-cheeked chipmunks scamper about me gathering food for the winter. Squirrels glide from tree to tree, building nests and hording sustenance. A noisy murder of crows continually breaks the silence of the fall air. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with the coming winter or not but they seem content to caw and scare away the occasional gull. Whoever said this time of year is dead has never taken the time to look and listen. For I hear and see things now that I never notice during the peak of the lake season. I actually heard the flutter of a sparrow’s wing high above me in the tree as it perched preening itself. I can hear a pair of ducks cutting through the water. I hear a far-off fishing boat long before I see it. The world is intense and intimate and alive during these moments and I am blessed to be here.

As a Christian and a Christian writer, I believe that I am called to two things. First, like all Christians I believe that the world should be able to see Christ in me. That’s a tall order and I certainly do not always succeed. In what I say and what I do (and what I write) they should be able to see that this “Christian stuff” makes a difference–that it’s real and alive and moving, just like the movement of God in my life. As a Christian who is a writer, I believe I’m called to try and make some sense of all of this “God stuff” and “faith stuff” on the page. I don’t want to grab the readers by the scruff of their necks and pull them screaming into the kingdom, but I do want to help them find evidence of the sacred in everyday life. I want them to see what I see, holy moments that may lead them gently into the light and the waiting arms of God. If they see something they like, I hope they will join me in the walk. It’s a good road.

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