Road Trip Revelations
- Janet Richey
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Cemeteries, State Parks, and The Endless Pandemic
In June of 2020, just when I was about to lose my mind, the government opened things up with enough restrictions to consider renouncing my U.S. citizenship. Armed with family history that I culled from an ancestry website, and photos that I found in my grandfather’s World War I steamer trunk, I would pack the car with juice boxes, peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and a sense of humor to let the kids know who was in charge. We visited crumbling homesteads, cemeteries with weather-worn gravestones of family members I only knew from stories, and a state park that my grandfather had visited in the early 1900s to engage in some seriously unregulated hunting. While the rest of the world was waging a war over masks and vaccines, our family bonded over the questions, concerns, and stories that bounced around the inside of the Ford Explorer, touching each of us at different angles like a prism.
Conversations and Covered Bridges
As the summer of 2020 gave way to the start of a new school year, road trips became a coping mechanism. With a faint recollection of a particular covered bridge near my grandma’s place of birth in 1899, my son and I took off on September 11, 2020. With images of the Twin Towers not far from my mind, I felt that COVID successfully dulled the American senses to the unspeakable terrorist attacks 19 years prior. Born in 2007, I shared my insights with my son on the ripple effect that has touched nearly everyone. The car was immediately filled with a suspended moment of silence as we drove through the narrow, winding roads of Perry, Snyder, and Union counties, until we made a right turn and saw a red-covered bridge in the distance.
We didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of something sacred.
Closed off to traffic several years prior, we freely explored the picturesque but slowly decaying covered bridge, finding our way to the edge of Penns Creek. In true boy behavior, my son dug out the flattest rock he could find with his ragged fingernails, thoughtfully weighed it in his hand, and sailed it across the water like an Olympian. We lost count of the number of skips as it disappeared under the bridge, and there I witnessed a rare moment of quiet joy move across his face like sunshine. Ah, this! Uncomplicated, unadulterated freedom. Cyber-schooling has its perks.
That one bridge sparked a quest to visit the over 200 covered bridges in Pennsylvania, fueling our growing fascination with its rich history. Having visited 179 so far, each bridge has a personal story, some more difficult to tell than others. In five years, I’ve had a front-row seat to this developing teenager who exhibited angst, curiosity, and impossible questions at breakneck speed. Prayers in the form of silent screams would seemingly go unanswered as I grappled for an appropriate response. I know that God equips the called, but this? I was way out of my league. And yet, with prayers and a few thousand miles of practice, these unexpected landmines became a catalyst for open (sometimes exhausting) dialogue that defines our relationship today.
The Road Ahead
Recently, I have been paralyzed by fear, as COVID-19 suddenly seems like a test run. Those who disagree with my convictions are attacking others like me with more than just their words, and there are no rules of engagement. For the first time in my life, I feel like a target because of my Christian faith, and my safety zone keeps getting smaller. That little thing about persecution that Jesus mentions in the Gospels is now in my backyard, and if I stand firm in my faith, it’s only going to get closer. Sometimes I don’t know if I have the endurance to see it to the end.
Maybe it's because I don’t have an eternal perspective on things. I don’t really know what heaven is like, and within the confines of my family and my church, this world is pretty good. Or maybe I’ve gotten too complacent. Perhaps God is nudging me out of my comfort zone to be a more obvious Christian through what I write, speak, and how I behave. But I can’t do it alone. The Bible tells us that we Christians need each other:
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10: 24-25, ESV
Because of the quarantine and getting lost in my own pitiful circumstances, I pretty much flew solo through COVID-19, not having daily contact with solid Christians as I do now. But even in my weakness, God still allowed meaningful things to happen, such as what I learned on the backroads of Pennsylvania, which I can share with you today.
While the current dangers seem more real than a virus that split the nation in 2020, I think of this verse:
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 ESV
Perhaps, like me, you struggle to see things from an eternal perspective, or maybe you are helplessly tuned in to the endless news cycles, seeking knowledge and fleeting bits of hope that the tide will turn. Regardless of what it is, the only hope is in Christ. In the scriptures. In prayer. And within the church family.
Nothing else even comes close.