Out Our Way: There's nothing here - Isaiah 40:4-5

Out our way, folks take pride in their sense of humor, especially when it comes to "messing" with tourists. Up the road is a small town that proudly boasts "403 residents and one sore head." I am told they have a regular town vote on who gets to be the official sore head every 10 years. We also have fun with various state ad campaign slogans in which I fear we may be more likely to confuse and even discourage tourists than attract them. I remember the "Get Lost in Montana" slogan, which, upon reflection, might seem more like a warning than an invitation. When I went back east to school, many folks had never seen wide-open country or known what rural really means. I can understand how nervous some city folk might be to drive 50 miles without seeing another car or any sign of a town. But my absolute favorite slogan, and favorite of a good many other folk I know, was the infamous "There's Nothing Here" bumper stickers and road signs. 

Highway 2 is supposedly the longest two-lane highway in the USA, and along the HiLine, it runs pretty straight. Quite a few tourists drive it on their way to Glacier National Park and, from their perspective, there really is "nothing" here. The road parallels the BNSF Railroad line, and so, every 10 miles or so is a small town where the steam engines used to refill their boilers and load coal - and with such easy access to the rail line, a good many folks set up ranches and farms along the way. Today, the railway stations and water tanks are mostly gone, but the farms and ranches remain. So tourists traveling along the Hi-Line just see acres and acres of crops and pastures. Nobody is going to "ooh and ah!" over a herd of Angus or fields of barley or take selfies in front of the grain elevator. 

Of course, the "joke" is, they don't know what we know about the area. They haven't seen moonrise over the Sweetgrass Hills. They haven't discovered the pow-wow circuit or the local rodeos. They haven't seen the antelope racing across the prairie, or been to the elk preserve during rutting season. They haven't been to the Bear Paws, nor walked the encampment where Chief Joseph's courageous journey ended. And they haven't smelled the sage, heard the meadowlarks, or felt that first chinook winds that even in February can melt an Alberta Clipper's frozen grasp on the land and give us a hint of spring as temperatures soar.   

So, while it is true that for them " there is nothing here," for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell, and a heart to feel, it is not true. Once you have lived the Hi-Line, you can only pity those who race through it and never know how much there is here.

Some folks race through life like those tourists who race across the Hi-Line - too focused on "getting somewhere else" to take the time to notice and enjoy where they presently are. For them, life is somewhere up ahead; tomorrow; down the road, and because they are so focused on the future, they miss the present. I know this is true because I have been one of those "tourists" speeding through life but never living. Then God made me a "resident," forced me to slow down, to look around, to suddenly discover what I had been ignoring in my haste to "get somewhere else." I am still a work in progress, but I believe I am slowly beginning to discover that where I once saw "nothing," I am now waking up to "everything." Happy trails, Pard!

Be blessed and be a blessing!

Brother John

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The Rev. John Bruington is the retired pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Havre. He now lives in Colorado, but continues to write "Out Our Way."