This past Sunday the hiking trail opened to a plateau near the geographic center of this great commonwealth. In a distant mountain gap, fog sat over Bellefonte a few miles away.
Gunshots pierced the silence. Down below and to my left I saw the orange vest and hat of a bird hunter. Into the open broke a short-haired pointer hoping to retrieve a bird. As I walked by, the hunter laughed and informed me that he had missed both the rooster and hen that had been flushed. The dog grew impatient with our brief conversation so she headed off to find more birds.
This is a part of the Pennsylvania woods, part of America that I really enjoy seeing. The interaction of nature and man. Whether it be a fly line in the creek in the canyon below or a hunter and dog working birds, it is part of the rhythm of where we live.
I never really got to see days like this during my 22 years of coaching. A Sunday like this would’ve been spent in the office studying film, seeking advantages we could exploit the following Saturday.
Things like casting a line in a fall stream, or hunting behind a working bird dog or a beagle rabbit was something I never had the time or skill set to do. But now I relish the time walking in the woods and along streams is enough for me.
The fields of high grass are now dead and brown from the first frost. But it still provides cover for birds and small game to evade hunters, both human and avian. Below to the right as I bend back toward the creek, there are dead fruit trees, remains of an orchard once worked by inmates from the nearby state correctional facility.
The land that was once part of the prison was opened for hunting and recreation for all of us. It is one of those functions of government. Government ensures that land like this is cared for, and not paved over. All of us can enjoy it for various recreational uses.
Pennsylvania is a beautiful state. Even in November, when the grass is brown and dead, and the leaves have all fallen from their magical display of October autumnal splendor, there is still something to the changing of the seasons. It marks the passage of time from summer to fall while we await the coming winter.
It is part of the human condition. Time marches on for all of us. When our time will end, none of us know for sure. It may be determined by the genetics we were given at birth. It is in the hands of the fates, and some would say the hands of God Almighty.
My faith and my beliefs tell me that there is a God above who knows when that appointed hour shall come. It is not for us to know. So, we must relish walks through the woods and walk through these grasses. They provide balance to the challenges of our daily lives.
I do not believe that one’s religion should be worn on our sleeves or brandished like a weapon for us or against others. I believe there is a balance to all things. There are many paths to faith in the almighty, and we have free will to walk our own way.
There is an ebb and flow of time. There is a time when all things will come to an end.
The memories we gather, the things we accumulate, the family we have; one day we will close our eyes and let them all go. And it is hope in that faith that sustains me on these hikes. I hope I will see my father, my grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends and faithful dogs who have passed.
I think about them when I walk. It’s hard not to do that when walking alone with just my thoughts. Those thoughts bring mostly smiles, but also some sorrow. What would they think of the present? I would love them to know my children now and for my children to know them as they were in their life’s prime, not just as a fading memory. But that’s not possible.
It is something we just have to accept. Time’s inevitable march moves us minute by minute and season after season toward the finite constraints of human mortality.
At no time is that more front of mind than with the coming of winter. Much of the natural world falls into a dormant slumber under what we hope will be a snowy winter. We wait as we look to the warmth of spring sun that will start the growing process all over again.
Flowers will bloom; color will return marking life’s rebirth. We’ll put the plants in the ground and watch through summer as the tomatoes and peppers grow mature and ripen.
But before each spring must come winter.
And yet among the cold of the winter, there is joy in seeing the beautiful snow, the sun’s rays reflecting off it like crystals. The frozen expanse of a lake providing a place for ice fishers. Kids joyfully sledding down hills on unexpected snow days.
The sound of snow crunching underneath our feet. The sound of a ski’s edge as it carves through the snowpack speeding down a slope. Speeding, certainly not as fast, perhaps, as when we were younger, but the adrenaline, and the joy in the wind in your face is no different than it was then.
Those moments are the joy and life found amid Pennsylvania’s winter months.
While not a biblical scholar, I’ve read a good amount of the religious texts of three Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. As this day’s walk descended into the canyon and along the creek, I was reminded that in the writings of all three faiths, one constant is a paradise marked by trees along the banks of flowing water.
How lucky are we to find that piece of heaven here in our mortal world in this commonwealth?
