Driving through the gap.

I have put countless miles on my truck this last year. Of course, my work is greatly responsible for that, but I've also found driving to be a common past time for me. I love being on the road...and I tend to feel stale and restless sitting at a starbucks these days...so I drive.

I rarely have a destination and prefer to let the moment lead me where it may. Perhaps I've grown a little weary of planning. And while nothing is ever solved upon my return, I feel a strange pressure building on my soul from time to time and the long stretch of miles is like a slow, gradual exhalation.

Last night, I ended up in Fountain Hills, gazing upon the dark silhouette of a mountain surrounded by a sea of city lights, they twinkled in the night like lowly stars fallen from heaven... and I looked for meaning in it all. I watched two young lover clinging to one another, whispering empty promises into the wind and I waited patiently for nothing in particular.

Soon my heavy eyes told me it was time to head back, but I avoided the hurried highways and searched for surface streets, hoping to keep my thoughts from going too deep.

It was late and the city had long ago rested her heavy countenance upon a pillow of soft dreams...eyes calmly closed, a gentle half smile on her lips, she looked so serene but I couldn't relate.

The roads were barren.

I had "The Shadowlands" by Ryan Adams on repeat and opened the windows because the song needed air to breathe...it was cold, but soothing and I wondered where my soul was.

Sometimes you just can't be a man when you're living in the darkness of the shadowlands... - Ryan Adams

Many miles passed before I met another vehicle. I could make out the headlights from a distance, brightly displaced against the evening asphalt. We passed one another like lonely travelers and though less than a stranger to me, the passing cold steal and fiberglass, brought me a level of comfort, reminding me that there was other life out there...

It's been said that God communicates to us in our pain and this is something we must all learn. But sometimes I feel like there is a gap between the time we feel the initial sting and the time we find Him. These are the sleepless nights we spend tossing and turning, the hours we pace the floor wearing out the carpets of our minds... perhaps it is also this gap that causes us to stretch to the eternal.


-