Epic Journeys

July 17, 2004

Personal Narrations

Joel Akin

Calgary, Alberta

Psalms 76:4 Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey.

I'm watching the Lord of the Rings again. In reality I've not seen the final episode as yet though I've seen the first episodes at least four times now. There is something about an epic journey that stirs my soul. I do not know if others can feel what I feel or desire what I desire. At times I do not see how it is possible not to desire more then what one can see and feel. One of the greatest things I ever owned growing up was a set of binoculars with which I spent many a night staring up at the stars. We are not talking sweet summer nights alone but a multitude of winter nights lying in my warmest jacket upon several feet of snow. Perhaps if I had not gone off to Bible college and did so poorly in math I might have gone into Astronomy. I should make a note here that I did not do poor in math Because I went to Bible school. For those who might think I am blaming the school for my poor analytical skills. I always found Math one of those mysteries. Like accounting. It sounds so simple until you find out there is an entire world to it that is beyond the dreamers ken. I know. I tried accounting until they started speaking in sums and totals I could never add up. Of course my major at college was English and that too had its depths to which one could spend years delving into.

 And perhaps it took college to make me realize something small or large about myself. I could never be a specialist because I wanted to know it all. I have a book on George Washington Carver who went to God and wanted to know everything same as me. God kept telling him that he was wanting too much until finally Carver said, "How about the Peanut Lord?" And the Lord told him that was more down his alley. Carver went on to discover more then 300 uses for the lowly peanut. I wonder if I should thank him for peanut butter?

 I know I can never be a specialist simply because I am too busy trying to learn everything else first. Everything that is except Math and accounting. I may find math and physics interesting to talk about in a general way but probably less then sewing and polka's. I still find it hard to believe that I used to know how to knit. And when I was in college I even knew how to sew up my own rips and tears.

But all this is getting off the subject of journeys and epics. I know there are those I've met who have never traveled more then 3 hours from home. Not because of injury or finances but for lack of curiosity. Their life satisfied them. Their dreams were simple ones and they could not see beyond their own life. Are such folks to be envied and are their lives to be copied?

Where would I be if my great grandfather David Zaukelies had not left Windenburg, Lithuania in the late 1800's. He was a fisherman as had been all of his fathers before him. They had plied the stormy Baltic for generations. But political changes and war led him and my grandmother to Ellis Island in New York where they became just two of the immigrants to America. How could he know that his dreams, his young family, his loving wife, all would be lost to him within just a few years when in 1907 he was killed, possibly murdered while doing the thing he loved most? Fishing? Who could imagine that one of his children would go on to be my grandmother but she too would die in her early 40's followed soon after by her husband? From such tragic circumstances my mother was born and raised and her 7 siblings would all be orphaned with the oldest barely out of their teens?

No, this is not the kind of journey one wishes to take. How can we call such journeys epic? To most they are just the facts of life. But how often have we turned aside from stories that could be epic if we but had eyes and ears to hear. One doesn't need to carry a cursed ring to cast into Mount Doom to be on a journey worth telling. Everyone of us has a story that someone, somewhere and perhaps some time would enjoy hearing. I often think of generations past. Of family who lived and died and yet I never knew them. Their names have been lost and so forgotten no one knows of their existence or that they ever lived.

When I was about 15 I decided that I was going to dig a hole in the back yard to find treasure. To this day I don't know what got me started but I dug and dug. I found shattered glass and broken pottery and rusted metal pieces I could not identify. And then I found treasure. I still remember my excitement when I showed it to everyone. A metal button. Seemed it had an anchor and two stars on it and a domed top. But I knew that I had found treasure when my younger brother joined me in that hole for a time. Eventually the powers that be ordered the excavation eliminated so my treasure hole was filled in and the bewildered parents wondered what I would think of next.

Perhaps the epic is not just about the journey but in the preparation for it. There are always going to be the sitters who are content to listen to the tales. They are those who accept whatever comes their way. They don't think about what might be buried in the back yard or what adventures lie around the bend. They accept pretty much what comes their way with aplomb and stoicism.

Then there are those of us who are the dreamers. We are the ones who search the stars for answers while watching the ants for wisdom. We have to be off, even if its in our minds searching for answers, searching for whatever path God might have for us. We are not ones to accept the status quo but we are the ones with the hunger to get on that ship to the promised land with the thirst to know what is around the next bend.

I sometimes wonder if the reason the dreamers, such as myself, have the ability to dream, is simply because of those who do sit at home and are content to do so. They are like rocks that give us something to cling to when our dreams are slow in coming to pass. The encouragers and supporters and true friends who are with us in the good and in the fire. Especially in the fire we find on the journey. It is then when you really find out who is and who is not God sent. For the fire brings out the best or the worst in us. If I am to have companions on this journey may they be god-sent and God given. Strong and courageous and not afraid to fight for what they believe in.

 To finish I would like to share a true story of a friend of mine. Nick was my boss and he reminded me of the steadfast, strong advocate who loved God and stood by you no matter what. One day while traveling to a nearby town God gave him a vision. Not an ordinary vision either for it was about me.

 Nick saw me standing on the side of a mountain. God began to show me all of creation with its hills and mountains, beautiful waterfalls and grand majestic skies. In a loud voice I shouted "Praise God!" And then I turned around and there on a rocky outcropping sat a bird nest with several eggs and a young chick just about to be born. It began to peck at the inside of the egg until its head had poked through. In a very quiet voice I whispered "Praise God."

That vision was sixteen years ago. It is only now that my dreams show me standing on the side of the mountain. Isn't it ironic that after all these years being on the journey, the struggles, trials, tribulations just to get to this stage? That I don't fully appreciate where I am at...? It is not that I don't enjoy what God has done because I do. But being in an adventure is great when the adventure is over. For it is when you are on the side of that mountain when it is cold, lonely and there are few to turn to. God had to send a reminder from 1988 that it is here on the mountain side that He has revealed Himself to me both in the big and in the small. For that I truly do praise God.