“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place?”
– Job 38:12 (New International Version)
After the news of the past twenty-four hours I feel an urge to get away from the madness, to a place where I can be silent and reflect on the things that are really important in life. I need to be a place where I feel small, yet known and loved. Fortunately, I have such a place like that, even in the recesses of my imagination. It’s the Kansas Flint Hills.
I became intimately acquainted with them when I worked as a service engineer for FedEx. My wife and I were living in Emporia, Kansas at the time and my daily duties often meant a trip down the Kansas Turnpike and the Kansas Flint Hills to a large FedEx facility in Wichita, Kansas. When I first started making the trip I would tune my radio in to National Public Radio, listening to sultry New Age voices like Lakshmi, Audie, Anastasia, or the occasional male voice Kai.
In those early days I needed those New-Age voices to break up the boredom of the 100 mile journey. I would gaze out the window as I passed through the Flint Hills. There was nothing there, or so it appeared. There few, if any trees. All I could see was a vast sea of grass, and rolling hills. If you open the link above you’ll understand what I’m writing about.
That all changed one morning in 2002. My trip began as it normally did,with Lakshmi and Audie and the crew accom[anying me. The dawn was about to break and my perspective was caught up in what I’ve come to see as a transcendent experience.
I stopped close to Mile Marker 109, which is a bit south of what local ranchers call “the cattle pens.” I didn’t spend a lot of time there, bus it has taken its place in heart as one of the most profound ex[eriences in my life. I’ve never felt so small, yet also so loved. I came away from it feeling that I was truly known.
I penned an essay about the experience after I returned home later that day. That essay follows. I hope it gives you, the reader, some sense of peace we all navigate these stormy seas.
Reflections at Mile Marker 109, Kansas Turnpike
By
Phil Dillon
© 2002 Phil Dillon
It’s the cusp of dawn. I’m chasing Orion’s Belt and bull-haulers down the Kansas Turnpike. At mile marker 109, about a furlong or two south of the cattle pens, I stop.
The occasional rush of southbound traffic breaks the dawn silence. Like a general poised in his appointed place, I review the early morning parade. Saints and scoundrels, gospel singers and politicians, truckers, ranchers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mothers, fathers, children, all pass by. Problems and opportunities wind their way down the highway with them.
I touch the highway sign. Mile marker 109. I feel the bits of rust creeping up on the metal. It’s man-made, temporal, placed on the edge of the eternal. It speaks. “This is where you are.” It speaks of commerce and progress passing by. It speaks of cattle and concept drawings on their journeys past a solitary milepost planted on the edge of eternity.
I turn, take a step, and cast my gaze across the prairie. Like the storied astronaut of my youth, that one small step transports me from one world to another. Thoughts pass by. Some pass quietly, humming like the Toyotas and Fords on the highway. Others I hear in the distance. Their low, grinding hums become roars as they draw near, like the Peterbilts and Kenworths hauling their precious cargoes from Chicago to Dallas or the Twin Cities to San Antonio.
While the darkness has not yet surrendered to the day, there are hints of color along the rim of the eastern sky. I sense that they carry the faint whisper of an announcement of the millennium to come. The ageless ritual proceeds, moment by moment. Light overcomes the darkness. The unbroken sky and the endless sea of grass now join together in a hymn of praise. The morning breeze caresses the tallgrass. The blades of grass, in turn, wave gently to and fro, worshippers caught up in the glory of this moment.
Thoughts glide effortlessly through the air, then stop to gently kiss the earth. The earth gratefully receives the kiss from above and pleads, “Maranatha…..Maranatha.”
A hawk circles above, wings outstretched, reaching for an unseen spire. As he circles, the dawn sun touches him, revealing his priestly robes and eyes of fire.
I sense that I’ve entered a great cathedral. I’m overwhelmed by my own smallness. I fear. The hawk descends slowly, gracefully and speaks. “You are indeed small. But, fear not. You’re known…..You’re known. This is where you are. Mile marker 109. This is the place where the line between now and forever is drawn. Here you own nothing, but are given the grace to be a part of everything. The language of the world you left is ownership. The language here is stewardship. This is the place where moth and rust do not corrupt.”
His appointed ministry complete, he now lays hold of the morning currents and moves effortlessly off to the east.
I feel the warmth of a tear as it drifts slowly down my cheek. My epiphany’s complete. I turn back and take another small step, returning to the world I left moments before. I take my place in line with my fellow travelers, the builders and dreamers, the movers and shakers, the commerce and the concepts. Our daily procession has taken us past this place…..mile marker 109.