Maybe you have seen what I saw the morning of Tuesday, March 31: new snow, and plenty of tracks.
On my morning walk, I’d seen signs of some of our local woods critters—fox, ravens, deer, chickadees. The fresh snow showed tracks so clearly, and they were intriguing. An hour later, I was back outside, looking again. This time, more snow had covered the tracks I’d first seen, and the new ones I found were of humans. Where vehicles had parked, there was varying snow cover. Which parking spot was first vacated, and which most recently vacated was known in a glance. And a family had been taking a walk, as little-size and adultsize tracks showed.
My own tracks were still visible too (especially where I’d taken a gentle fall), but like all the rest were becoming “unseeable.”
Tracks seen—and unseen—got me thinking. What tracks, seen and unseen, are in our lives? Tracks of struggle, fatigue, making it across what comes our way without too many falls, or sometimes with a fall that really hurts? Sorrow, joy? Pretty big questions stirred up by a couple of short walks.
And then, I began to wonder–what about the tracks of God? For some people, the tracks of God are so obvious they can’t be missed. Like seeing the vacated spot where a good-sized pick-up parked before the snow began, still showing brown earth in the encroaching white. Tracks of God to some are even clearer, seen in the birth of a child, in advances in cancer treatment, in planets that don’t collide. Some see it in the amazing geology that is our planet which sustains life, is billions of years old yet houses God’s continual creating, is fragile yet sturdy, and was spoken into existence by God.
Other times, though, the tracks of God may seem hardly visible. Like the soft impressions of fox tracks that make mild dents in a first layer of snow, and are easily hidden by the next layer. Or like pine needles, light green on white snow, soon to become “un-seen.” The tracks of God, too, may seem to some, or at some times, as barely impressions, or seem “unseeable”—yet are Present whether we seek to see or not.
You may be reading this after Easter Sunday, the day on which Christians proclaim again that God is with us, walks alongside us, and gives us the promise in Jesus of new life after death. Can we see the life God promises in Jesus? Can we look into the tomb of death and see new life? Can we find evidence that satisfies our longing “to be sure?” Can we see tracks of God? These questions are life-long conversations.
But I find that even our wondering, even our “looking for tracks” is one of the Tracks of God, as if we are gazing at the top layer of new snow and wondering what is beneath; as if we are finding out that our tracks are incomplete in themselves; as if we are waiting for another without being aware. For me, even my wanting to see shows me the presence of God, for “By the Lord has this been done, it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118), and “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him.” (Isaiah 25)
Take a walk, and see what tracks you see.
Each week a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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