Life on the Road

 

It was cold. Bitterly. Even through my gloves, the cold reached my fingers and I found myself curling my fingers into the palm of my hands to keep them from becoming so cold that I would lose all sense of having them.

The church stood on a hill to my right – I caught it out of the corner of my eye
as we drove back toward Sparta, NC. Lew and I debated whether or not we would go
over the fence but it really wasn’t much of a debate. We both knew we would go
over it. And so we did, carefully staying clear of the barbed wire. As much as I
do not like the cold, I treasure the silent sound of footsteps on the snow on a
bitterly cold day. Lew drifted to the right and I followed the drifting snow to the right.
The church is empty. Boarded up. A barbed wire fence tightly follows its outer walls. Locks hold the doors closed. I imagined the church as it might have been long ago, filled with people and voices, and wondered what could have happened.
For me there was more than a passing interest – having lost my faith long ago
despite my PhD in biblical theology. Time and memory and distance. Another life
I once lived so long ago.

The wind stirred from the valley below and the shadows moved restlessly over the face of the snow. Our time here had passed.

Tags: abandoned, church, cold, lost, NyghtFalcon, snow, Sparta, winter

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