Just a patch of dirt?

He said, "in my opinion, it's just another patch of dirt -- a pretty one, but just another patch of dirt."

The "he" was a handle-bar 'stached Harley biker (is that redundant?) Standing on the parking lot of Grizzly campground at 7 am July11 we had driven down the day before from MT through the north entrance of Yellowstone to the campground in west Yellowstone. The evening before, we'd had dinner with Brad, my friend from college, and attended the local rodeo where one of Brad's ministry students tried his hand at (a very brief) bull ride. It had been a great day celebrating the majesty of northwest Yellowstone and fellowshipping with this group of college students as Todd made a memory to last a lifetime.

Yet, my biker friend, who was from 160 miles south of the park, only saw it as a stopping point, as a piece of land to "get through before the gawkers get out and make it a 4 hour drive through the park."


Since this encounter, we've been retracing steps from the past. On the occasion of our first wedding anniversary, Darcy and I trekked from Sioux Falls to Montana, with stops in Wyoming, Yellowstone, etc. This year, we're visiting many of the same sights:

* From the campground, we motored through Yellowstone and exited the park via the Beartooth Highway (outstanding views) and camped in the shadows of Devils Tower.


* The journey across South Dakota included stops at Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, and the Badlands, before we raced tornadoes to our Sioux Falls stop-off.


* In Sioux Falls, the kids got the chance to see "Little Blue," the first house we lived in after college and to meet some dear friends. We had a great, albeit brief, opportunity to visit familiar turf and see it anew through the eyes of the children. It was fun to see the "familiar" of old friends reborn in the lives of their children.


* The next stop was Chicago and a visit with Purdue friends and a stop at the Shedd aquarium. Once again, a 36-hour stop was filled with fond reminiscence.


* Finally, we've landed in the Cleveland suburbs to see Darcy's family and attend her 20th high school reunion. In some instances, we saw some people that we hadn't seen in 10 years (even though we live within a 2-3 hour drive of some of them) and some that Darcy hadn't seen in more like 20 years. There were the expected stories from the past, the antics of high school, as well as the new set of exchanges (marriages, childbirths, separations and divorces). And the commitments to maintain the connections to ensure that the familiar remained that way.


This afternoon we visited Grandma Jones' grave site and then took the kids to Akron, to see the house we lived in there, to see the patch of dirt we formerly called home. Though some of the directions were jumbled, the neighborhood was familiar to Darcy and I. We gawked at the changes that subsequent homeowners have made, particularly the removal of the trees we planted when Mikaela and Nathan were born. We ended the day, celebrating with family at Aunt Dana's.


Interestingly, this past week has been filled with treading on old patches of dirt -- places and people that are easy to dismiss as familiar and old. Yet we've been blessed to see them anew, to freshen the familiar.


Might that be our mission everyday.