Tales from the Trail #20: Euphorically edified in Edinburg …
I eventually made it thereafter through the town of Taylorsville (where a kind Phil read my smock and noticed my limp and offered me a breakfast of hash-browns & jam muffins at the local McDonald’s) and then all the way to the near outskirts of the town of Edinburg (where I peacefully paused awhile on the roadside to admire some lovely clouds overhead). And it was here that I stopped to ask a few local folks if there was a church nearby that might be willing to help a pilgrim out by providing him with some fresh socks (as my current pairs were clearly shot), and without exception every single one of those same folks told me to walk a bit further and ask at the Whosoever Will Be Served church. And so that is exactly what I did, slowly but surely making my way to said sanctuary without any major troubles and then entering the same to tell the pastors there about my Walk and ask about the possibility of acquiring some fresh footwear …
Quite intriguingly (and most unusually*), those same two reverends were openly dismissive of my Walk while at the same time being seamlessly generous in finding & giving me two pairs of brand new socks (socks that shockingly fit my size 18 feet!). Interestingly as well, a funeral was about to start there that mid-morning, and the body of the deceased happened to arrive on the scene just as I was discarding my old socks and donning my new ones. And while I was doing the latter, I took the opportunity to actually examine the bottom of my feet and noticed for the first time that there was a reason the soles of my feet were hurting so much of late – that I had acquired several blisters there (including one HUGE blister on the bottom of my right foot). There wasn’t much I could do about this new challenge, so I finished putting on my socks & shoes and then asked the church staff on hand about the best way to get back to Highway 31 from their spiritual abode. Almost unsurprisingly at this point, I was told to cut straight through the large cemetery located just across the street, and so with a shrug & a smile that is exactly what I did – almost joyfully (though also respectfully) walking through the land of the deceased to thereafter get back to walking the wasteland of the living …
It bears noting that the entire day up to & through that point had essentially been a real downer (including my short visit to the Dollar General store on the far outskirts of town, where a departing customer had at first fluidly agreed to help get me a few miles up the road – which would have provided me with yet another wonderful opportunity to calmly & gently speak about The Way of Radical Kindness – and yet immediately thereafter was shamed & fear-mongered by James, the store attendant on hand, into withdrawing that same caring offer). In truth, both my own personal level of physical suffering alongside the raw callousness with which the same was being addressed (or far more often, ignored) by my fellow humans, was calling forth in me a profound depth of sadness, and I found myself critically pondering the same as I walked out of town that afternoon. I was admittedly not paying attention to my surroundings as a result when an 18-wheeler blew past me, blew my hat right off my head, and (for the very first time on any of my pilgrimages) blew that hat high up into the air and over the railing of the bridge upon which I walking at the time. “No big deal” I thought, “I’ll just get over the bridge and limp back down below to retrieve it.” And yet when I peered over the railing to get my bearings for that same mission, I saw to my great dismay that my beloved headgear had landed precisely in the middle of an island that lay precisely in the middle of a significant flowing waterway (something between a stream and a river) – a waterway that was almost certainly too deep for me to traverse, and thus one that had in effect “eaten” my hat quite permanently. And yet to my own saving grace, I instantly began laughing at this new pinnacle (or fresh nadir, if you will) of misfortune, and simply smiled as I tightened down my two bandannas – one across my forehead and the other around my neck (to ward off the glaring Sun) – as I then slowly yet steadfastly proceeded onward down The Road.
*Normally the people I encountered were either callously rejecting or openly generous after hearing about my Journey, never both at the same time.
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