Reflections

December 13, 2018

Bulverde, TX

The Hermitage Ranch

“Tis evening on the moorland free,

The starlit wave is still:

Home is the sailor from the sea,

The hunter from the hill.”

A.E. Housman

Home safely and preparing for the Christmas and New Year holiday season makes this a wonderful time for me to reflect on the adventure which began on October 23rd and ended November 23rd...a full month crammed with blessings beyond measure.

The question almost everyone asks when they hear what I’ve been doing is, “What did you enjoy most.”

The only appropriate answer, is “Everything!”

How do you pick from the multitude of blessings God gave me on this journey? My reflections may not show it, but the reality is every day, good or not so good, I felt wrapped in God’s presence. Spectacular sights often took my breath away...standing at the top of Germany on Zugspritz where it seemed you could see forever...the quiet of the Pilgrimage Church at Wies...the raucous oom-pah-pah at the Hofbrauhaus...the overwhelm at Hans Peter Porsche’s Trainwerks and Minatur Wunderland...to the quiet hours driving through the back roads of Germany. How do you choose?

The answer is -- You don’t!

As wonderful as those times were, what made this adventure such a blessing were the companions on the journey. Ten strangers at the beginning (even Frank...you don’t really know someone until you spend 17 days with them in a car) each became a special blessing in his or her own unique way.

How can you measure the joy of stories shared over meals and drinks?

How do you offer an adequate “thank you” for the multitude of small kindnesses that made my trip so special...lingering behind to walk with me at my slow pace, running errands so I wouldn’t have to, connecting through shared experiences, nursing me through a strained back and other miscellaneous weaknesses. Each was a soft and gentle reminder of God’s presence in my life through the grace of friends.

So what did I enjoy most?

The companionship...the camaraderie. Whatever you want to call it, ultimately it was the friends that made this such a unique and special time.

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Postscript:

There are two poems about “home is the sailor…” the one I quoted and the other by one of my favorite authors, Robert Frost. In his “Requiem” he writes,

“Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;

"Here he lies where he longed to be,

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill."

Someday that will be appropriate, but for now I return again to his poem, The Road Less Traveled, that has been the hallmark of my life's journey….

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. “

And so, my friends, as God wills, I hope you’ll join me once more on my yonderin’s when the day comes that I walk through my front door again to choose another road and....~

Blessings and Peace!

Padre