Sleepiness is beginning to overcome me as I turn my car into a sharp curve on a state highway that runs between Minnesota and North Dakota. Gripping the steering wheel tightly with sweaty palms, and yawning, I successfully negotiate the curve and continue my trajectory in a straight line. It is really, really hot outside! My dashboard digital thermometer boasts a temperature of 101 degrees, the actual air temperature even in the shade. My Chevy van’s old air conditioner groans as it tries to oblige me with the air I need to stay alert on this scorcher of a day.

I keep thinking and reminding myself that I am already about half-way home on my business-related trip. “Only another three hours to go,” gets stuck in my mind as I peer at the odometer. But sleepiness is persistent in wanting to be my traveling companion. It’s time for a break and gosh, it’s only twenty miles out of the way to check out my old home town where I grew up as a kid. Too many years have passed since I last went down its short Main Street. And lately, I have had repeated dreams of how things may look there these days. Almost always, these dreams have ended abruptly. I would wake up and never really know for sure. I ponder how a dream could serve any better than my own two eyes. The time has come to find out first-hand.

Gravel dust rises and scatters behind me in the rear-view mirror as I enter my destination town on a block-long street that’s under road construction. Let’s just call the place “Smallville, USA,” a typical little town that you would often find in many farm and ranch communities on the plains of the Upper Midwest. The welcome sign to this settlement gives a population of 357 people, down nearly 100 people since I last lived here and attended the small high school a block off of the main drag through town.

I head for Main Street and pass by Riley’s gas station (now a convenience store) where I stop to fill up my tank. My fingers flinch upward from touching the uncomfortably hot gas cap cover. I wonder if anyone I might meet would remember me from over twenty five years ago. As I put the gasoline hose back on the pump, a woman runs over to me from the store and excitedly says, “Well, by golly, it’s Dave Wilkins after how many years?!” In utter amazement, I exclaim, “Donna, I haven’t seen you since I was a senior and you were a junior in high school.” We exchange a rather superficial, obligatory hug. I never knew Donna that well compared to her sister Kate who was in my class. 

We spend only five minutes engaged in small talk. She reminds me how much she thought of my parents who lived in town and how saddened she was by their tragic deaths in a car accident eleven years ago. My family and I attended their funeral in another small town fifty miles away, held in a church where they were married. That wish had been spelled out in their will. But an even stronger request was for burial at Peace Garden Cemetery in the back of Christ The Shepard Church just two miles out in the country from Smallville where beautiful Basswood Creek flows. That church had been the place where they were long-standing members. It was where I had been taught the traditional Christian basics as a maturing youngster.

She encouraged me to visit the church and the cemetery. I told her it was on my “to do” list after a quick reminiscent passage through town on some of the streets etched into my memory. After a short town tour, I crept by 605 Crosby Lane where I had lived as a kid, my parents’ most recent home. The new owners had done extensive house remodeling with a vastly changed yard and landscape. In so many ways, it didn’t seem like the home where I was raised. I paused in the street as I sat in my car for several minutes, then pushed onward to the old church with a revisited sadness of heart. 

It was nearing four o’clock in the afternoon as I set my sights on what was known locally and informally as “Creek Road” that led out to the church near the far eastern banks of Basswood Creek. It was an old asphalt county highway claiming an abundance of potholes that made you really slow down. There was no need for rumble strips on this stretch of road to keep your speed down. I had joked in town with Donna that if a police car were behind you on this road, you would likely be pulled over for a suspected driving while intoxicated violation because of needing to steer erratically to avoid these jarring annoyances.  

Eventually, I could see the brass-colored cross at the top of a faded white steeple peeping over a low hill on my upcoming horizon. I recalled as a kid how the cross and steeple seemed to pop up out of nowhere on the way to church. In some hard to explain way, the sadness and grief that I had felt as I left town started to lift. Creek Road had been aptly named. It was as straight as an arrow as it left Smallville and crossed the meandering Basswood Creek four times, stopping at a “dead end” that was the church cemetery, very close to the creek which often flowed peacefully. As a kid, there almost seemed to be something magical about this road-path that led to a place of solace, comfort, and sacredness. Today, this was something that I was just beginning to experience again.

I steered my van into the parking lot, right in front of the church. My parents had raised a small family that included my brother Donovan and me. We were a foursome who generally attended church most Sundays. Sometimes a weekend job schedule would interfere or we would be out of town visiting family members or close friends. I recounted just how many times we had gone up those stairs and through that double set of doors that led into the sanctuary. My mind easily produced a clear visual image of this and I could sense a smile appearing on my face that simply, unconsciously, formed. 

With the outdoor air temperature now around 90 degrees, I got out of my vehicle and left all of my windows open. The oppressive air humidity had gone down quite noticeably and it was time to go inside. I grabbed the black painted pipe railing that was set in the concrete stairs. It was still quite hot to the touch, but I held onto it as I ascended to the double, arched doors. I hoped that the members continued to keep the doors unlocked as a gesture of welcoming to passersby. I grabbed the door knob, turned it, and pulled one of the doors open. 

I immediately became reacquainted with the heated, slightly musty smell of an old country church built in the late 1800’s. The air ascended up into my nostrils, nudging me into more memories of my youthful church days. In science magazines, I had read that the olfactory sense is a primal, basic means of remembering and relating to a human’s environment. The recognition of this unique scent was something that had stayed dormant in my brain neurons all the years since my youth. I said out loud, “What an awesome God!”

The air inside was warm and the light level was subdued. The same old coat racks and clothing wall hooks were in place, not showing any noticeable changes since I had left for college. Paul Jenkins’ horizontal sign, done beautifully in carved relief on basswood, hung above the paired entry doors to the sanctuary. It was an exquisitely done work of art and over the years I had still remembered its words, “For those who enter here, I will give you comfort and rest.” Though a bit paraphrased perhaps, and a modification of Matthew 11:28, these words could be understood to have been spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.

My hand reached forward to grab the pull handle of the right door to open it and go into the sanctuary. As I entered, I almost felt becoming transfigured in some kaleidoscopic way that would be difficult to explain. It was considerably brighter here and the beams of light coming through the segments of the stained glass windows seemed to intermingle in an iridescent way that I had not noticed ever before. There was a slightly dusty, humid-like haze in the air and the colored light shafts projected at an angle downward like mini-searchlights. 

The “spiritual experience versus rational explanation” exchange turned on in my mind and the soul-core of my being. Rationality said time was moving to five o’clock in the afternoon. The Sun rays came in at just the perfect angle through translucent glass pieces that had metallic salts added many years ago for coloring. They continued on through inside air that was dusty because of it being an old church and humid because of the weather outside. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I chuckled at how one’s left brain hemisphere can get so complicated in reasoning and involved with words! Surely, I could buy this academic explanation but the experience was so majestically powerful that the spiritual-sacred won out on this one. As an amateur scientist who enjoyed astronomy and paleontology, and identifying as an enthusiastic nature lover, I had long ago accepted a belief that our Creator may often use natural world means to communicate a spiritual presence and an enduring, loving acceptance of us. I felt gratitude for what had just been revealed to me. I wished that my parents could have “light-bathed” with me just minutes ago.  

What were the stained glass stories in this church that were based on predominant, traditional, Christian Bible interpretations? Those were the understandings that were given to me as a youth when in Sunday school and Vacation Bible School classes. I decided to walk by each window to take a really close look.

I studied each of the twelve multi-colored window sets that adorned the side walls of the sanctuary. I realized even more fully than ever before how metaphor, figurative understanding, and underlying meaning were complementary to a concrete-literal story view of these Biblical accounts. They represented the experiences of previous generations, millennia ago, in the regions of what we call the Holy Land. I sat in one of the pews to reflect on this, having a fuller appreciation for God having given us also a storied presence.

I walked up to the altar area. I climbed one step upward and I was on the platform that held the large table upon which was a cross on a pedestal stand, an over-sized Bible with red ribbon page marker, and a holy communion wine vessel with a wafer plate. This altar platform also accommodated the pastor’s podium with a large wooden chair, a slightly raised choir loft, a baptismal font, and a large painting of Jesus standing before an empty tomb. The American and Christian flags were affixed to standing flag poles on each side of the platform as if to serve as sentinels to the proceedings of an upcoming worship service.

The mental images from memory included Pastors Robinson, Miller, and Janansky who spanned my church life from baptism to a college send-off blessing. These clergy all seemed to blend together as I envisioned them standing behind the preacher’s pulpit. I could see my mother in my daydream as she sang soprano in the choir as my father smiled, sitting in a middle pew with my younger brother who looked bored and squirmy. I must have been there also, but I couldn’t see myself there in that middle pew. I could hear in my memory, “Now go and serve the Lord,” then the clanging of a rope-pulled dismissal bell as it all faded away.

The sounding of that imaginary bell signaled to me that it was nearing evening. It felt good to have phoned my wife Jean from Smallville that I would be arriving home late this evening. Jean was fully understanding and supportive of my need to reconnect with my past, especially continuing my working through of grief about my parents who I had deeply loved. 

I had time yet to explore the Sunday school classrooms in the education wing of the church. On the walls of several of the rooms was the classic colored picture of Jesus out of doors and delighting in the presence of the creatures coming to him. It was as if they were drawn to God’s human presence on Earth. It was my childhood favorite. It still spoke to me even though having no direct, literal, scripture passage. The classrooms for the older youth had the well-known picture of Jesus knocking on a door. I realized my appreciation of artistic, pictorial interpretations of the Christ experience as I departed to the church basement to sniff the kitchen and walk through the fellowship hall.

But this did not happen as I had planned. As I started walking down to the basement level, I heard the loud slamming of a door as if wind suction had added to the startling noise. After all, the wind had been blowing quite strongly over the previous half-hour. The noise seemed to have come from the side door that led upstairs to the church office. I ran in that direction and heard a shriek from a woman standing fearfully at the office door with a key. I said, “Is that Peggy? I’m Dave Wilkins twenty five years later. We were in Sunday school together.” Hand clutched to her blouse as if in fear, she sighed heavily with relief and said, “Dave, you scared the tar out of me. Damn, it’s good to see you again.” As we entered the office together, we started catching each other up on our lives since high school. Peggy was now the part-time church secretary who had come back today for some papers. Her parents also had burial plots behind the church. She had to depart soon as she had a daughter to pick up. We hugged each other warmly and I said I needed to walk through the cemetery soon as I had over three hours left on my trip home. 

I walked her to her car in the wind, the air having become a bit cooler. I watched as she departed and passed by the low hill until she was no longer visible. I then strolled into Peace Garden Cemetery as the wind subsided enough to hear the sounds of the flowing of water in nearby Basswood Creek.

As I walked through the cemetery gates, I let out a deep sigh. I hadn’t been here for eleven years. But I knew exactly where my parents’ cremated remains were placed in this garden of memories. Throughout the expanse of grounds were stones and markers, each one of them signifying a person, a human life once lived on Earth. As I walked around the grave sites, I noticed that the age range of the deceased ranged from newborn to centenarian. A typical average life span of seventy-some or eighty-some years was an ultra-minuscule amount of time on the cosmic scale of a universe being an estimated 13.7 billion years old and an Earth forming 4.5 billion years ago. To be able to comprehend this was something I saw as a gift from the Divine Maker, to be able to marvel at the mystery of our being and eternity itself.  

Not that I hadn’t done it before, but I once again pondered the meaning of life given my current setting. I had always felt that to do so was God-honoring. Aside from church dogma, doctrine, and creed that emanated predominantly from a third or fourth century understanding or interpretation, I saw the teachings and insights of Jesus as mediating a God-presence not only in and from him but also present in us. I noted this awareness to be dormant in far too many people. Today, now, I felt empowered with a clear awareness of being eternally grafted to a tree of life that was our mysterious God. This spiritual reflection was something I really needed to do to be able to see my parents’ interment sites without a feeling of overwhelming grief. 
 
The time had come. I strolled over to a corner of the cemetery where eleven years ago I had said a goodbye to them, having thanked them and God for a rich, full, and loving upbringing. Presently, I could not say or think any words as I stood there with my eyes closed, feeling their presence and the presence of God in every fiber of my being. As the wind dropped to almost nothing and the air having become drier and cooler, I passed through the side gate and walked to the creek that was within one hundred feet of this life celebration garden. 

How fitting that a creek was so close to the cemetery! I recalled as a boy having gazed downward into its waters. When the waters would be flowing, I could see my own body’s reflection. That image would appear to oftentimes scintillate or shimmer, but it gave me a sense of self as if God were with me, perhaps related to the sky’s appearance in the background of the reflection.  

The creek’s flowing waters seemed to symbolize the flow of peoples’ lives. The meandering Basswood Creek had many twists and turns, as was very likely the case for most peoples’ lives. Their period on Earth could have been abundant and joyful as with deep and steady water flows or lean and barren as when the water was but a trickle or nonexistent. As the water would flow by, its coursing would turn out of sight beyond the horizon just as death would no longer allow a person’s physical living presence. Yet we would know that the water continued beyond the bend just as we knew that a person’s spirit — the soul — would not perish in the Great Beyond. For me, that added up to an eternally loving Creator. Maybe that’s what scripture was actually saying all along!

I turned from the creek bank to walk back to my vehicle. The Sun was getting lower and cast a slightly golden-yellowish hue on the faded white church. As I entered my van, I started to resume my journey home, realizing and appreciating why I had come this way.

END

Note: Any use of names in this story is for fictional purposes only. There is no intended reference to anyone real or known. Any similarity between story names and the names of actual persons is a matter of coincidence.

The story originally appeared in Northern Narratives 2017 as published by the Fargo (ND) Public Library