by Pastor Dan Baumgartner “He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

I’m in training. I’m trying to learn to pay attention. That seems to be the recurring theme in my life right now, paying attention to where God is, what He is doing in the world, in the people around me, and inside of me. The training is difficult work, much harder than I would have imagined.

On Tuesday I drove over to Genesee, Idaho, the small town where both my parents grew up and I used to spend part of each summer with my grandparents. I’ve probably made that drive a hundred times in my life. My Great Uncle Don passed away last week, and his memorial service was Tuesday. Knowing I would have a lot of time to myself in the car (it’s 300 miles each way and I had to go and return the same day), I resolved to try and pay attention.

It was a very foggy morning in Seattle, and in fact I drove through heavy fog all along I-90, up and down Snoqualmie Pass and all the way to Vantage, on the Columbia River. The fog was so thick I had to really concentrate at the wheel, and realized early on that I was driving smack into a metaphor. Sometimes all I could do was trust the white line at the side of the road, because I couldn’t see any further ahead. If the white line bent, I bent with it. Trusting the only thing I could see got me where I needed to go, even though I couldn’t see the destination.

After I turned onto Highway 26 and went past Royal City and Othello, I went down the hill to Washtucna and started up the other side. That stretch of road has steep rock walls on either side of the road, and it is littered with the faded white graffiti of generations of daring Washtucna High School students. As I hurtled by, one phrase stood out from all the rest:

“I LOVE HEATHER.”

I wondered. Did Heather ever find out? Had the spray painter ever told her? Maybe they were married now with two kids and a little house on a wheat farm.

I remembered the goofy dating things my wife Anne and I wrote in each others’ high school yearbooks which are now part of our family folklore.

“I LOVE ANNE.”

I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to spray paint it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

When I arrived in Genesee, I hurried into the little Community Church, half-filled with my relatives. George, the pastor, entered just before the service started and I noticed he had muddy shoes and mud up the back of his pants. Funny what you notice.

Then I remembered that he and the family had just returned from the little cemetery on the hill outside town, the same one where I had buried each of my grandparents over the years. Each of those had been bittersweet times of loss but also infused with a mysterious sense of God’s presence.

That hill is holy ground for me.

George got a little confused at some point in the service. He used the first part of Psalm 121 as a call to worship. Then one of my distant cousins read the whole of Psalm 121 as one of the readings. Then a little later, George read the entire thing again, forgetting that he was supposed to read a different passage. So we heard Psalm 121 three times.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth.”

Maybe God was making a point. I could stand to hear it again.

At the reception, I visited with Auntie Kathryn, my Great Aunt and now Don’s widow after 66 years of marriage. Auntie Kathryn was always one of our favorites, the most gentle and gracious person imaginable. From the first time I remember, her eyes crinkled in the loveliest way when she smiled. Now that she’s eighty-eight there are more crinkles and even more smiles.

“Dan,” she said as she hugged me, “This is really hard but I’m gonna make it through. Don’s in a better place.”

Before I drove home, I hurried up to the cemetery on the hill. It was partially covered in snow, like all the other rolling hills in the distance that had pink sunset fading on them.

At the top of the hill I found Great Uncle Don’s freshly dug grave with the white bouquet of flowers on top of it. He was a good man. I felt the rich brown earth in my fingers. A little ways away I found the graves of all four of my grandparents, though I had to kick through a snow drift to read the markers. I left a few tears of sadness and took with me a great sense of blessing for good people who had come before me.

I headed back through Moscow, Pullman and Colfax onto a now pitch black Highway 26. We don’t see darkness like that in the city. Glancing out my side window I saw a white mass in the blackness.

Stars. More stars and constellations than I remember ever seeing in one sky. There wasn’t a farm or light within sight, and no cars coming for miles in either direction so I pulled over to the side, turned out my headlights and opened my window to stare and listen to the absolute stillness. Amazing, this gift from the Maker of heaven and earth.

As I pulled back onto the highway, I turned on some music for company, and found myself singing

“In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song….”

It’s funny work, this learning to pay attention. Sometimes it takes me a whole day to realize that I’m never alone, no never, never alone.