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I have 1,262 pictures of Montana. And that is not the whole of Montana. Just the northwest quarter of this vast state with Havre, Glacier National Park, Missoula, and Helena standing in as my corners. What may sound especially strange is that I have 497 pictures of a town called Big Sandy in the middle of this square—a town that (according to the last census) only has 10 more residents than I have pictures.
Indeed, I have so many pictures of Big Sandy you would think that I lived there or something. And I guess a piece of me kind of does. Hard to say which part exactly. I was thinking about it on my bumpy plane ride out of Montana yesterday and considered multiple options before finally deciding it was my soul. That most mysterious part of our being human where our body braids with divinity like sweetgrass, not one but not separate.
I started going to Big Sandy somewhere around 20 years ago to help start the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd movement in the region and have returned almost every year since. As a result, I have a good number of pictures of catechist friends, though I only have five of Sr. Kathleen, who hosted me over a dozen times. She is a very dear friend but doesn’t like to have her picture taken and I try not to be demanding.
I have 49 pictures of the airport in Big Sandy. I’ve never actually flown in or out of there, but Kathleen told me that if I wanted a good place to walk in town, I should just stroll up and down the airport runway. This activity seemed like something that should be illegal.
“It’s Montana,” she said.
“But what if a plane tries to land while I am walking?” I asked.
“It’s not like they can’t see you,” she said. “Just move over off the side of the runway and wave.”
In my 20 years of walking there, it has only happened three or four times. A distant buzz in the quiet air. My heart jumping into my throat, sure that the FAA is about to become involved. But I move over to the side as directed by Kathleen. The plane—usually a pesticide sprayer—lands. The pilot and I wave to one another. I’ve yet to be arrested or plowed down.
There is nothing better than walking the runway in Big Sandy. To see antelope jumping alongside. (Or once a badger who did not look at all happy to see me.) To reach the end, after exactly one half mile. To turn around and face Mt. Centennial miles away on the Rocky Boy Reservation with the red sun rising from behind, or sometimes shrouded in cloud with thin curtains of virga billowing, or sometimes the crisp silhouette stark gray against a brilliant blue sky. It’s possible part of my soul has taken up permanent residency inside the painted number 6 at the end of that runway where many a time I have sat down just to take in the view of it all.
But perhaps more likely my soul has taken root along TV Hill Rd which has to be the least creative name for road in the history of the state. I do believe that it may simply indicate that the old TV tower is at the end of this road. I don’t know. I’ve never made it that far. It is merely a gravel road leading out of town that for some strange reason I have 147 pictures of.
Well, it isn’t exactly strange to me that I have that many pictures since I’m the one that took all of them, but what I don’t entirely understand is why this particular road so enchants me. I have nearly been eaten alive by mosquitoes on this road. I have been up to my ankles in mud there. I have also been coated in dust. I once had a mother and three baby skunks cross in front of me on the road and pause, leading me to fear I might not be eligible to board the flight home from Big Sandy.
But the view of Centennial is also riveting from TV Hill and that view now includes a lone tree in the pastureland north of the road that has called me to take photo after photo after photo of it. Twenty years ago, it started small and then each year it grew just a little larger until around four years ago it disappeared. Snapped in a windstorm, I am guessing, like the 70 mph gusts coming down over the mountains that we briefly endured this past Wednesday afternoon. Except that this week, where that tree once stood, there is evidence of a new shoot like one from the stump of Jesse that is reclaiming its own home here. So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised my soul would decide that this is where it should remain, even as the rest of my body flings itself back across the country.
By no means do I want to idealize the land of Montana or its history. It has known much violence and corruption. The soil has absorbed generations of sadness. The morning dew there feels like the earth crying. Indeed, I think part of the reason souls decide to dwell there is because there is nothing perky or peppy about this corner of the country. Nothing fast-paced or titillating to distract from the reality of human existence: the reality of how small we are below the vastness of the sky; how powerless we are standing at the base of an immense immovable mountain; how singular we are buffeted by harsh winds but no other sound. The soul is that part of us that insists on remaining wherever the Real is present and not being distracted by anything else. What is most real is not always what is most exciting or most interesting. Just the most real. And the soul deserves to spend as much time as it needs in places like this.
Be kind to your soul by letting it remain this week wherever it is that it demands to stay.
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Preaching Update: This past week on September 3rd the church marked the feast of St Phoebe—a woman with a sort of straightforward, strong Montana spirit. I’m attaching my short reflection for the day here.