Where I Talk to God

Where I Talk to God

God and I speak to each other regularly. Based on that statement, you might assume that means that He and I are tight, that we are always on the same page. But that would be an incorrect assumption. God and I talk a lot, everyday…multiple times a day. While our conversations are many, they are frequently too one-sided in much the same way a conversation between a hearing man and deaf man would be. I’ll often ask God something, but simply not be in a position to hear His reply. The constant disturbing drone of my daily life muffles His voice. Despite my human shortcomings, I’ve managed from time to time to find some really excellent places visit with Him. Many of them are relatively exotic, natural places while others are rather ordinary places.

God and I especially like to chat on cliffs. Just outside Roanoke, off of Route 311 near Catawba, God and I like to chat on the cliffs beside the Appalachian Trail overlooking Bradshaw Valley. When we talk, the wind is usually screaming up from the valley floor and washing all of my inhibitions away, cleansing my soul-thus freeing up my mind to hear what He has to say. My talk with God there usually ends with me picking out a few tunes on my harmonica and penny whistle. While many people seem to cringe when I squeal out my tunes, God seems to like the sound of it. The notes even seem to quiet the rushing winds.

I talk to God on all of the cliffs surrounding the Roanoke Valley. Tinker Cliffs, Dragon’s Tooth, McAfee’s Knob, and Read Mountain. In the Shenandoah National Park, I like to visit Bear Fence Mountain, High Top Mountain, and Stony Man Mountain where I sit on the edge of cliffs and let God’s wind calm me. Then we talk.

Over the course of my short life, I’ve managed to tour the United States twice. On each tour, I’ve found some very special places for my special conversations. God speaks on the shore and from the small mountains that meet Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He apparently really likes the Great Lakes because he also gets rather conversational on the shore of Lake Huron right next to the Mackinac Bridge. I found Him there by wading out about 50 yards into the knee-high water and standing stony still* drinking in the expanse of blue before me.

One of the best places to speak with God is in the middle of nowhere. There I can give Him my full, undivided attention. Standing on top of a cinder cone at Craters of the Moon National Monument on the edge of the world’s first nuclear reservation near Arco, Idaho, I am as close to Him as I can get. There, with a 60 mph wind blowing hot across the desolate, radioactive desert floor and up my cone, His words pierce my mind like sharp, yet comforting nettles. As I spin around 360◦>, my whole life is presented to me, ticking off in randomized splices. My successes and failures, my joys and losses, my triumphs and mistakes. My sins stand as monoliths absorbing dark energy from the wavering surface of the limitless windswept desert far below.

When I visit Prairie Creek State Park in Northern California, I can stand among some of the largest and oldest trees in this world. Yet even these giant Redwoods are dwarfed by God’s presence. Wandering though the veiled darkness in the brightest part of the day, my life is uncovered to me as I match the rhythm of Nature in my walk. Eventually, I pop out onto a rugged ocean beach and am buffeted by a fresh, cold ocean breeze. As I stand in the icy water close to shore, my mind is jolted in to communion with God, and he can be heard loud and clear.

Back when I was a regular classroom elementary school teacher, we would open each day with a moment of silence. I would use this time to meet God in school. He seemed to enjoy talking to me there. I know from our conversations during those many moments, that He really enjoys kids and that after our talks I always seemed to have the patience and wisdom to deal effectively with everything that I encountered on the job.

More so than during the moment of silence or at the special places I’ve visited over the course of my life, the place where God and I speak most often is on my pillow as I’m fading off to sleep each evening. There, just as I begin to dim into twilight, I reach out to Him with my mind’s voice and speak to Him of my fears. In return, He shares wisdom and peace with me.

If you were to ask me what God says to me, I must honestly reply that I really don’t know. While our conversations can be intense and fulfilling, I have no detailed recollection of what we’ve discussed. I’m simply left with general impressions and the true sense that God has my back.

* Stony Still is a two word descriptive phrase that my favorite author, Roald Dahl, used in his book, Danny Champion of the World. In that book, Dahl painted a picture of one of the pheasant keepers standing stony still against a silhouetted tree in the emerging moon-bathed twilight with his gun loaded, ready to pepper trespassers with buckshot.