Untracked
I'm at the corner when my neighbor spots me. He is in some kind of convertible, midnight blue, that looks like a modern version of a Model-T. I am in old baggy orange running shorts, gray and white sport top. Mismatched. Not the way I'd wish to see my neighbor. "You should run down at the track!" he yells. I give some lame excuse about why I can't, don't. He pulls away, shouting, "I just saw a skunk and a racoon around the corner!"
I run on, under a sky that is the kind of deep, glassy blue that if you could touch it, you might fall up, in, get swallowed by the universe and not care. Never come home. The moon is half, a white face playing peekaboo beyond the trees. White clover bob in crowds at the sidewalk's edge. And there are white roses spilling through a weathered, grey wood fence. The tiniest clusters of white flowers look like trumpets and smell like the sweet edge of God, as they hang temptingly above poison ivy.
A quiet Tudor with simply one white light (the round glowing button of a doorbell) and another Tudor with lights all bright that say "Come, come in!" Splashing water from some hose that has been abundantly left to run all over someone's driveway. One lone white terrier barking furiously. Everywhere, earthen fragrance and rustling leaves and twists and turns. This is running, off the track.
And then I think of it. This is how I like my running. This too is how, mismatched as I am, I like encountering You. Fragrant, sprawling, shy, bold, dangerous, sweet, enthralling, untracked You.
I run on, under a sky that is the kind of deep, glassy blue that if you could touch it, you might fall up, in, get swallowed by the universe and not care. Never come home. The moon is half, a white face playing peekaboo beyond the trees. White clover bob in crowds at the sidewalk's edge. And there are white roses spilling through a weathered, grey wood fence. The tiniest clusters of white flowers look like trumpets and smell like the sweet edge of God, as they hang temptingly above poison ivy.
A quiet Tudor with simply one white light (the round glowing button of a doorbell) and another Tudor with lights all bright that say "Come, come in!" Splashing water from some hose that has been abundantly left to run all over someone's driveway. One lone white terrier barking furiously. Everywhere, earthen fragrance and rustling leaves and twists and turns. This is running, off the track.
And then I think of it. This is how I like my running. This too is how, mismatched as I am, I like encountering You. Fragrant, sprawling, shy, bold, dangerous, sweet, enthralling, untracked You.
Labels: prayer of reflection
posted by L.L. Barkat at
9:38 PM
2 Comments:
"a sky that is the kind of deep, glassy blue that if you could touch it, you might fall up, in, get swallowed by the universe and not care"--I've gazed on skies like that, had the same amazing sense, but never put it into such perfect prose.
I love the idea of our God as wild and unexpected and uncontained. Untracked, like a field of unmarked snow early in the morning. Unpredictable, like the surprise of a muskrat trying to come in the sliding glass door--just as I'm writing this! Thanks for pointing Him out in the unusual places....
On the byways, off the beaten track, the "roads less traveled."
The outskirts.
Jesus always liked to travel these roads didn't he?
"I run on, under a sky that is the kind of deep, glassy blue that if you could touch it, you might fall up, in, get swallowed by the universe and not care. Never come home."
I know that feeling too :)
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