Sketches of Magnificence

Our country is a beautiful place. I bicycled across it with my husband 30 years ago and saw the slow unveiling, spoke by spoke, of gorgeous mountains, sprawling plains of waving grass, rolling hills. Alongside vista after glorious vista of natural beauty, we met a people that overwhelmed me with kindness. It was that experience that made me love my nation.

There are many many stories I could tell of that journey, and as God calls them to remembrance, I will. But the story today is an overview.... a sketch. All along that 3,000 mile journey, I carried a sketch pad, and sketched my way across the country. Most are just incomplete snapshots of scenes we passed, and not well developed, but when looked at in totality, do give a picture of an amazingly beautiful country.

I know what you want to ask about that trip, because we were asked it probably 20 or 30 times every single day over the 3 months. Here are the answers:
1. 3 months
2. 50-100 miles a day
3. 3,000 calories
4. camping, and yes, it is all carried on the bike
5. about 50 pounds of equipment
6. mostly on the "Bikecentennial trail"
7. 3500 miles
8. yes, we are nuts

I was not yet a believer, a God-follower, when I biked across the country. I hate a good bit of who I was at the time, but with the advantage of hind sight, I see now that I was searching. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I thought surely it is somewhere in the 3,000 miles from sea to shining sea.

I didn't find it.... not on that trip. I found clue after clue after clue. Like many people have discovered who are far wiser than me, what most of us are longing for can be found without taking a step. We want to be loved, and we want to love. We want to be good, and we want to please those we care about without sacrificing who we are deep inside. We want to be useful and to know we have purpose, and meaning, and relevance. We want to ponder the deep and impossible questions of the universe, and share them with others who take the time to listen, and not mock our inevitable ignorance. We want eternity, but not if we have to face it with jiggling thighs and sagging turkey necks.

What I discovered many years later was I was searching creation for the Creator. The first moment that I honestly believed that God was real was when I gazed upon my newborn son. I was utterly convinced that this life was not a great cosmic accident, a serendipitous mingling of mindless chemicals. That was when my sketch of a search began to develop to the Masterpiece I had been longing to see.

1 Corinthians 13:9-10 (New International Version)

⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.