My present submission to JPG Magazine’s Theme: Frozen. It’s a picture I took at my parent’s farm in Abilene, KS. I love that you can see the Barn and pasture fence in the reflection!
Frozen, from a Garden’s View
You can see all of the submissions to this JPG Theme here. My favorite in this theme is The Cold Path, by Pepjin Sauer
As I said in my previous post, there were several things that had a supreme impact on me this last Kansas trip. The funniest one? An evening where I was lucky my father didn’t shoot me with his shotgun. No listen, it’s actually a humourous story.
It was the end of the day and Bahram and I had gone back to the hotel. As usual for me in Kansas, I was all sorts of worked up in thought and heart; wanting to talk about the things I’d seen, heard and thought for the day. Bahram unfortunately wasn’t feeling well and no where up to talking about anything requiring thought. In my frustration but desire not to push him, I grabbed a blanket and told him I was going back to the farm for a bit – would be back later. Even though it was nearly midnight.
You see, there’s something about Kansas. It’s what makes it a necessary visit every year. Kansas has a sky that’s so vast and so beautiful. Literally, you stand on my parent’s porch and you see nothing on the entire horizon. No buildings, no roads, no power lines… just land and sky. Forever and ever. It’s something I’ve found no where else. I go there for some of the same reasons I go to the beach at night.
There’s something about beautiful vastness that makes you feel connected to creation. To be miniscule and yet still important is an important reminder to me. To know that the world is so huge and literally go on beyond my little life and issues reminds me that no matter what the issue at hand is, it’s not really that big of deal in the huge skeem of things. Similarly, it reminds you that in the midst of that vastness, you are important. To God, to the people in your life. God touches us, knows us, despite the fact that the world goes on forever. That for the people in your life – despite the expanse of land and people, it is YOU that they somehow have found important enough to fit into their lifepath. Whenever I start to feel lost, it’s here that I find my center.
So I drove as quietly as I could up the driveway, no lights, parking in the back (I knew everyone was in bed already). I took my blanket, found the spot between the feed lot and the house that had the clearest view of the sky, and laid down.
The sky was so beautiful. Clear and full of starts. Each one a brilliant shine against a stark black sky (you don’t really know what black is until you see the night sky without the glow of a city). Within 5 seconds, I saw a shooting star. I thought, “no way – I’ve never REALLY seen one clearly in my life. Can’t be. Must have been something else.” So I continued looking and in the next 2 minutes, there were two more. As alone as I was feeling on the drive out to the farm, I instantly had a connection – to that great vastness. I just laid there, letting it go. Putting it out there. Giving it all to God and peacefully listening and watching the glory of it all – the beauty and infinity of creation.
On the plane out to San Diego on my last trip, I read an article of things moms said that impacted their children. The one that stood out to me? A catholic mother, raising a daughter, repeatedly telling her “to go where you find God”, even if that led the daughter to an Episcapalian church. In the recent years, that’s where I’ve gone. I no longer feel the need to search for God in a building; instead, I find myself going where He is, where He reveals himself to me, where His glory seems the strongest. Where is that usually? The ocean. The sky above Kansas.
So there I was, in a field in Kansas, finding God when I was all alone. Giving it to him and allowing the peace I found there to take it all away for a minute.
Imagine my surprise, when my father looked out the back door going, “hello?”. Of course, you can’t sneak into a farm in the dead of night. When people only get two cars a day going by their house, they can hear one no matter what the time. I only found out later that I was lucky he realized it was me and put the gun away BEFORE he got too far into the yard.
He walked out and said, “Nikki… what are you doing here? Are you ok?” I just managed to mumble something about an article I read about going where you find God and that here, in the night sky, was where I found God. He was baffled at best. “Are you ok, do you need to talk?” “No Dad, I’m fine. I just needed some time.” I got back into the car to head back to the hotel in town. By this time, my mom was out, slippers and robe and all. “Do you need to stay? You can stay in the guest house if you need to.” “No, really I’m ok. I just needed to be by myself here. I’ll see you tomorrow”
They were pretty confused – especially my father. I don’t know if it surprised him that I would speak of searching for God, or that I would lay alone at night in the dark, or that I didn’t have some sob story to tell them of why I was out there. We didn’t speak of it again, so I still don’t know if he figured it out or even came close to understanding.
For once, I wasn’t sorry or embarrassed that I wasn’t looking for God in a Church. I know it’s been disappointing to my parents that I’m not an active member of a church family right now. I understand the value that companionship and fellowship provides in the church, but for me, I realized a few years ago that my relationship with God has to be about ME and GOD first and making that healthy has to be my first priority instead of just trying to go through the motions of what everyone else says makes a good Christian. So I’ve been “going where I find God” and feeling more whole because of it.
I was confident enough to tell my father that I was looking for God in the night sky and felt no need to justify or explain. It felt good to do that. For just that moment, I abandoned the “always trying to make sure my parents think what I do is ok” and just.was.myself. Freedom, I tell you. I can’t tell you what they thought, but I can tell you that maybe this was a connecting moment after what I found out the next day.
So tell me, where is it that you find God?
