Behind the church, deep enough in the woods that the sounds of the street are muted, there is a bridge crossing a small creek.
The bridge was built from fallen trees. It looked so natural, looks so natural still, that if you are quiet and very, very still, you might, for just a second, convince yourself that on the other side of that bridge is something more than just brush and fern, pine and palm.
There is something ethereal by the bridge, something otherworldly. The longer the bridge goes unused, the more nature advances to reclaim its own.
There are missing steps, tossed aside into the water below, undamaged, free of cracks and yet somehow lifted and thrown to the water, where the fallen waterlogged pine needles stretch like fine webbing and begin to wrap around the wood.
The bridge is not for crossing.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
It is simply a marker to a world we still know so very little about.
It is mystery that drives us. It is curiosity that moves us. We search for answers and while some answers are found in books, other answers are found in the vast expanse of this universe, among the trees and the birds and the things that hide in the shadows.
I can say "we are not alone," and you think aliens immediately and with a smile, because that phrase has been co-opted by others.
But we are not alone. "There is no God," people say even while they yearn in their heart to know Him, even as they feel an emptiness within that nothing from this world can fill.
So, put them somewhere, at the top of Everest, in the space station, in the middle of the desert, among the trees behind a church, put them somewhere alone for a minute and ask them. Ask them if they truly feel nothing. Ask them to trust what they do feel. Ask them to be still.
The bridge was built from fallen trees. It looked so natural, looks so natural still, that if you are quiet and very, very still, you might, for just a second, convince yourself that on the other side of that bridge is something more than just brush and fern, pine and palm.
There is something ethereal by the bridge, something otherworldly. The longer the bridge goes unused, the more nature advances to reclaim its own.
There are missing steps, tossed aside into the water below, undamaged, free of cracks and yet somehow lifted and thrown to the water, where the fallen waterlogged pine needles stretch like fine webbing and begin to wrap around the wood.
The bridge is not for crossing.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
It is simply a marker to a world we still know so very little about.
It is mystery that drives us. It is curiosity that moves us. We search for answers and while some answers are found in books, other answers are found in the vast expanse of this universe, among the trees and the birds and the things that hide in the shadows.
I can say "we are not alone," and you think aliens immediately and with a smile, because that phrase has been co-opted by others.
But we are not alone. "There is no God," people say even while they yearn in their heart to know Him, even as they feel an emptiness within that nothing from this world can fill.
So, put them somewhere, at the top of Everest, in the space station, in the middle of the desert, among the trees behind a church, put them somewhere alone for a minute and ask them. Ask them if they truly feel nothing. Ask them to trust what they do feel. Ask them to be still.
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