Sneedville to Kalamazoo
The Walk That Wasn't
by
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The vision didn’t last very long, but while I was in it, time seemed to stop.
I had driven to Lakewood, outside Cleveland to help my friend celebrate his 60th birthday. "I’ve got to play the Saturday mass," Wally said, "Why don’t you come with me. You don’t have to sing — just sit in the loft with us. You can hear the new pastor. He gives a pretty good homily. Then you can leave for home after we get back." It was Saturday, December 2nd, 2006. I had been there since Thursday and I wanted to be back to sing in my own church, First United Methodist Church of Kalamazoo, the next morning. It had been an interesting year — in the sense of the ancient curse, "May you live in interesting times." A year earlier, on Friday, December 16th, 2005, I had returned from The Midwest Clinics, a major trade show in Chicago. By 10:00 that night, I had poured myself a glass of wine and sat down. I put my feet up on the coffee table and thought to myself, "This is great! I’m 61 years old and healthy as a horse. I just spent three nine-hour days standing in my display area talking to hundreds of people. I unloaded my car, carried hundreds of pounds of my stuff in and put it all away. My little business is finally making enough money so that next year it will pay all the bills. Life is good!" The next morning I awakened sick as a dog. The following Thursday I had surgery to replace the arch of my aorta — 10½ hours with my heart disconnected, my body attached to a multitude of machines, chilled down to a 70° core temperature. In March, the symptoms returned and in mid April I had another open heart surgery — 10 more hours with my heart disconnected again, my body once again attached to a multitude of machines, and once again chilled down to a 70° core temperature — to replace the next section of my aorta down to my diaphragm. The next day, another surgery to remove the tip of the epidural that somehow got lodged in the bottom of my spinal column. In May and June I had withdrawal symptoms that nearly killed me when I stopped taking Hydrocodone without asking my doctors how to wean myself from the stuff. Now, amazingly, I was returning to health. My body still hurt, but increasingly I found myself not being concerned about the pain that signaled it was rebuilding itself. My mind was no longer foggy. Or, some people would say it was back to its original fogginess. At any rate, life was, once again, good. At least, my physical life was good. Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Michigan had paid about 95% of the $740,000 in medical costs. But what was left on top of the bills I had been juggling was quite a load. Surgeons had warned me that I should never again lift more than 30 pounds. Attending the conventions that produced the bulk of my sales was out of the question. My little company was virtually moribund. I declared personal bankruptcy in the summer. Still, as a friend of mine said, I was on the right side of the grass.... The church was crowded. It was just a few weeks until Christmas. As it turned out, the new pastor didn’t speak that evening. But by the time the nun started the homily, I wasn’t paying much attention any more. Standing in the balcony at the back of the church suddenly, between me and the altar, I clearly saw a bit of my future. Because of all the medical problems, I had missed the annual mission trip I had taken nine times before with my old church in Virginia. I was determined to make my tenth trip in 2007. But now, as if I were transported into a huge video screen, I saw the end of the week I would spend the next year in Sneedville, Tennessee. Around me, dozens of others were getting into their cars to drive back to Centreville, Virginia. And there I was, in a robe and sandals... taking a walk. There was no voice telling me to "heal the sick" or "preach to the heathen" or any other particular thing. I wasn’t told where to go, who to see, or for that matter given any instruction at all. I did, however, feel very strongly the need to walk. On the way back to his house I told Wally what I had seen and asked, "What the heck was that all about?" "I don’t know," he replied, "You’re the guy who’s seeing things. You tell me." I didn’t sleep much after that. For the next several weeks I awakened several times a night thinking things like, "You can’t do this!" "You just had not one but two open heart surgeries!" "You’re going through personal bankruptcy!" "You don’t have any income!" "How will you eat?" "Where will you sleep?" etc.... etc.... etc..... Then I awakened several times each night thinking things like, "Well... why can’t you do this?" "You might die... but then, everybody dies sooner or later." "You won’t need any income." "Other people find ways to eat and places to sleep." "You have no other responsibilities." "If not now... when?"
I remembered that often in my life I would pray something like this. "I know You’re there, Lord. I know whatever You are is incomprehensible to me. I know I’m part of You, Lord... but... wouldn’t it be nice if... just once... You... talked to me. Showed me for certain You exist."
And I finally thought someday I will stand in front of my Creator, and He will say to me, "All your life you told me you wanted a sign. I asked you to do one thing... Why didn’t you do it?" And how could I possibly answer that question?
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About the Book
Did you ever want to really get away from it all? To leave behind work, family, friends — all the people and things you are so familiar with? To put a few essentials in a backpack, and just walk through places you’ve never walked before, as Heinlein would say, a stranger in a strange land? To get some experience of how and where other people live?
Did you really?
Neither did I.
And yet, in the summer of 2007, that’s exactly what I found myself doing. I struggled to take a walk I had imagined, and learned, time and again, to let go and accept the ride I was intended to take. I had to learn to let myself be led instead of leading. To see instead of watching. To listen instead of hearing.
In words and pictures, this book retraces that journey.
About the Author
John Leeger currently lives in Kalamazoo. He has written a number of computer programs, a little poetry, some music and an earlier book – One In A Hundred.