Modern Scripture

There is a place on my commute to work where the forested farmland of HWY 11 opens up to the town of Cleveland. During the day, this area of town is a stretch of concrete filled with cash only gas stations, decrepit motels lost to the relentless hammer of time, and addicts who walk back and forth all day pushing strollers full of anything except children. In the early mornings of September, it transforms into a landscape from another town far away. Orange and Pink fill the morning as the sun prepares against the dark language of hovering clouds. Patterns that can only exist for these moments alone. It is breathtaking.

When I travel across the country alone, I sleep in my car. It’s decently comfortable and I don’t have much of a problem falling asleep after driving all day. I have slept in parking lots of truck stops, rest areas, Wal-Marts, and even on the side of the road if there is no other place. No one ever bothers me. Because of this, I normally wake up at the first hint of dawn. I have awakened all over the US.

When I commute to work, memories of these distant mornings and places flood my vision. Places like Moab and Virgin Utah where the air is so cold when you get out to find a tree even though it’s the middle of Summer. Places like Acadia where the ocean mist consumes you through the night, only to spit you out in your moist sleeping bag the next morning. Places like the Ingles Parking lot in Key West when Rachelle and I caught the most perfect sunrise over the gulf.

After teaching for seven years, it is impossible not to feel the weight of day in and day out. I actually have a great job. But anything done over and over again is going to result in a repetitive stress injury. These visions of far off places and mornings remind me that there was once a time before I had seen or done the beautiful things that fill my memories. My life wasn’t perfect when I went to these place. I had problems that I had to wrap my mind around, and if I hadn’t lived, and even suffered through those days, I wouldn’t have gotten to the places these blinding memories reside.

I know there’s a metaphor that is beyond cheesy here. I don’t want to be too heavy on that. But this morning was one of those moments where I drove to the top of the hill, the city opened up, and the sky had what looked like written words from higher beings all through it.

Songwriting is translating the world around you and making it rhyme. When these god glyphs appear to me, I can’t help but feel the compelling hand of mystery urge me to write something pretty about them to show you. This hand has been there my entire life. An attempt to take the fragile changing moment and suspend it in the warm Amber of verse.

And then…I forget.

I go through town, get to work, and forget that I saw modern scripture floating above Tennessee. Every single time. There is not some button I can press to make me mindful. Some way to stop and find enough time to journal or take a note in my phone. Find the cloak of my vocation, put it on, and translate the prophets of Cloud, Color, Skyline, and Streetlights. Work is always waiting, suffering is always standing by, and frustration is always fighting for my attention.

But a miracle happens. The next morning, I get the reminder again when I come out of the forest and climb the hill in my little hybrid car. The surprise of the beauty in the mundane, the brilliant visions of far away sunrises, and the need to write write write. The need to hold onto the newness of this.

I just have to make it rhyme.