I once watched a Man vs. Wild episode with Bear Grylls. I never really watched the show, but I saw it one day at my parents’ house. Bear had stranded himself in the middle of some jungle, sleeping in a makeshift shelter, completely cut off from all civilization — only to awaken to first light at the sight of a single purple flower in the canopy.
“It’s like only God himself would have ever seen that flower,” he says. “And that’s beautiful.”
I wish I could find the clip; that line has long stuck with me. That even when 99.99% of humanity will never witness something, be it as big as a brontosaurus or as small as a flower in the jungle, God sees.
That the flower will display itself for an audience of One — how beautiful. How purposeful.
It’s the purpose that’s beautiful.
I’ve hit the road again because, well, old habits. So much of me wishes to ever abandon all notions of stability. “Normalcy.” To embrace my Kerouacian ways once and for all and simply bask in it, regardless what anyone thinks of me.
Because if the rest of humanity chooses to do life a certain way, why on earth would I want to follow along?
And yet the more I do this sort of thing, the longer I wander along the painted lines, the quicker the flame flickers. The more I find myself yearning for some sense of stability.
I reckon I’ll always go against the grain in so many other ways.
But to find and create a home for me and a home for others? Yes, that notion brings me great delight.
I started wandering a month ago, and it feels like hardly a snap. Following suit from journeys past, I christened my latest trek in an epic way — not quite the Grand Canyon of #RunningTo or Congaree National Park of #RunningAway or Rocky Mountain National Park of #RunningToo (this current trip is #RunningOut, by the way) — but to a monastery outside Charlotte.
Belmont Abbey.
I booked a three-day personal retreat at Belmont, welcomed by a robe-donning monk who serves as the monastery’s guestmaster. He showed me to my suite and asked eagerly of my journey.
“I’ve had a rough year,” I told Brother Peter. “I’m hoping to rest and recharge here.”
“Oh, we hope you do,” he said.
I could wax poetic about 6am prayer vigils and stained glass windows and chanting and silent lunches. I could write a humorous account of my dropping a coffee mug into a thousand splitting pieces. I could talk about how that monastery freaked me out and mesmerized me all the same.
Maybe one day I will do all of those things. But for now I make this single observation.
God sees the brothers of Belmont Abbey. Even when 99.99% of humanity does not. And they are beautiful.
I’ve ventured all over the South in the last month. From Charlotte to Raleigh to Greenville to Clemson to Hartwell to Athens to Dublin to Macon to Atlanta to Birmingham to Chattanooga.
While with my brother in Chattanooga, we ventured to Cloudland Canyon State Park just on the other side of Tennessee in Georgia. We hiked twenty minutes into the canyon’s depths, discovering a waterfall inundated with people, including a group of yellow-clad teens and tweens there with a summer program.
It was a bit of a turn-off, I’ll admit — seeing something so gorgeous, something seemingly meant to be isolated, littered with humans. I imagined coming back to this spot on Christmas morning or in the middle of a snowstorm or the Apocalypse itself when nobody else dare venture here. To soak in the sight of this falling water and simply lose myself in her rhythmic flow.
To affirm the water’s falling as purposeful and to call it beautiful.
At one point I ventured underneath the waterfall like a premium showerhead. I nearly lost my breath. The coldness of the water, the steadiness of its flow.
A barrage of beauty.
I returned to the shore and simply stared at the falls. Admired it alongside a hundred yammering tourists. I imagined myself zooming out from above, further, deeper, connecting this place to all the other places seen and unseen.
I realized all over again that I’m living a life that very few choose to live. And it is a choice. Not necessarily living homelessly but living intentionally. I’ve now trekked to 49 states and even lived in Georgia for 11 years but never once ventured to Cloudland — until now.
For all I’ve wandered, I’ve still missed 99.99% of this planet. 99.99% of this country. Dare I say, 99.99% of Georgia alone.
I want more, I want all of it, and yet I also want to rest in the futility of this earthly conquest. I want to wander where I will and when I can, but also to find contentment in the conquest of a single place.
I’ve a feeling where that single place will soon emerge, at least for the foreseeable future.
But for now. I will wander. I will be purposeful.
And I will trust that this God above, this God below, this God of the jungle, and this God of the city will see me and call me beautiful.
I so loved this, Tom, for so many reasons. Monasteries and abbeys are very cool places, having stayed in a few myself. Journey onward and inward with purpose. I know that not only God, but others, see you — and see you as beautiful.