Stacked Stone

This is a page from my Illuminated Pages Bible. It’s the Bible I use for art journaling in our Monday night group. You can see from some of the exposed text or the caption at the top of the page that we studied our gospel reading from last Sunday, about Jesus in the wilderness.

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​I’m pretty sure you can tell that it is a stack of stones.
A cairn
is a stack of stones left by pilgrims to help others find their way.  
It is also a long held spiritual tradition to stack stones where holy experience has taken place, and you mark the spot because you want to remember.
Sometimes, it’s just a fun, but bold and brave way to say, “I was here”. To be sure of our own existence.
 
So, this is the simplest aha moment ever.  So simple, that when I say it, it sounds cliché’, and yet it came to me as genuine and revelatory, (which, by the way, is the point of contemplation and the purpose of listening by engaging with art supplies), so I’m holding it as a holy treasure for my Lenten journey... 
 
The aha occurred to me on my way home after Bible study.
If you read all the way to the end of this letter, I will tell it to you, no matter that it is simple. 
 
But first, a little reminiscing.
 
We decided over breakfast what to do with our day.  Benno and I were camping on the eastern slope of the glorious Sierra Mountains. 
Magnificently Barren. Ancient and rugged and stunningly beautiful.  
Rock under every step, the view in every direction.
 
We would hike this day, to Italy Pass, a trail that had a ‘not well marked’ designation. As it turned out, there was nothing but little stacks of stones for a ‘trail’, 3, 4, 5 inches high; rocks not easily seen against a backdrop of rock. Mountains of rock, but stones small enough to pick up and stack in delightful little Cairns.
 
We hiked and climbed and rested our way from 10,000’ to nearly 12,000’ by way of this 4-mile ‘not well marked’ trail.
It was not a trail really, at all.  It simply was, a way. 
A way through the rocks to more rocks. 
 
I began to feel the presence of those who went before, as though they played with us by stacking stones. Or held conversation. Or offered company without words.  
Like
Sprites 
inviting. 
Muses inspiring. 
Mischievous Elves knocking the stacks down to make the trail go still.
They were even, companions, keeping us safe.  Beckoning. Gesturing. Warning. Including. 
With stacks of stone.
Such delight, our silent company!  Watching for their signs, following them forward, telling us to turn sharp or turn back, or to go down again and then go up.
 
Though I am a novice hiker, eventually I felt lighthearted enough that I could join the throng of adventurers who forged this trail with their Cairns, and said to me: 
“I’m here, and I see you. And you are here, too, with me.” 
And we added, here and there, little stones of our own.
 
Our marked steps, with this ritual of rock. 
Our journey by foot in the Sierras. 
Probably 6 or 7 years ago now, with our stone stories still stacked in the Sierras, 
remembering us.
 
No matter that we are novice pilgrims. 
Our journey is worth making. Our story is worth telling. 
 
So, my ‘Aha’ moment that I mentioned at the start of this page. . .
It is as if I heard Jesus say, after I finished my art journal and was almost home,
and in just a whisper:
‘that’s me. there. for you. I am your cairn.”
So, simple as it is, trite as it might sound, I hold it sacred.  
I inadvertently drew Jesus into my story, onto my page, in a pen and ink and watercolor cairn.
 
But only in hindsight, it occurred to me, that Jesus himself, could be the Cairn. 
He went first. 
He stacked stones. 
He made a way.
He journeyed the wilderness, kept company with the creatures.
He sat down in a parched and dry land,
in a magnificently barren uninhabitable place, and made habitation. 
 
For my journey right now, into the wilderness this Lent, he is my company.  
He is the whispering voice. He is the muse inspiring, the sprite inviting, the mischievous elf knocking the stacks down to make the trail go still. 
He is the wanderer in this wilderness who is himself stacked stone to say, as pilgrims do: 
“I’m here, and I see you. And you are here, too, with me.” 
 
Walking holy ground,
Ruth+