Church

 

The Big Hole Valley

There aren’t very many people in church today. It’s the Sunday after Easter and I am in church for the first time in a long time. The white steeples of the southern Bitterroot Mountains shine in the early morning sun. I am alone in the front row, sitting on the dented hood of the little Honda that has carried me out to Big Hole Pass for a sunrise service. I haven’t seen a car for nearly forty miles, just the winding two lanes of Highway 38 leading out into the distance.

I have all my patron saints guiding me on this journey. Saint George of Strait began my pilgrimage with Amarillo By Morning. Saint David of Ball brought me “There Stands the Glass' ' and now Saint Luke of Bell is singing “Glory and the Grace,” a song about living on the road and looking in the golden windows of people in their cozy cabins. Their gospels are blaring through the windshield as a frigid breeze forces me to snug my Carhart zipper higher. It may be the middle of April, but the Great Divide lives by its own rules and seasons. 

Last night, I had used both sleeping bags as I folded down the back seats of the tiny purple Zippy car, backed unobtrusively beneath a tree beside the Dillon train station. I woke up several times to readjust and felt the rumble of a freight train passing just thirty feet away like a leviathan in the night. It was uncomfortable, but it was necessary. Comfort was making me soft. 

It has been too long since I returned to my church. My epiphany came on the ride home from a gig in Missoula a week ago. Rain pelted the hood and the windshield wipers whacked incessantly as we plowed our way through the Clark Fork canyon. It had been 155 days since we had been able to stand comfortably outside in a t-shirt. 155 days since the thermometer hit 45 degrees outside my little house. For the first time in several years, there had been a real, cold, snowy winter and it certainly demanded my attention. Life became work. Extra hours for a bigger paycheck to pay for the electricity and the car maintenance. Shoveling snow every day and scraping the bottom of the firewood pile. Finding myself in the bar on Tuesday nights because I was tired of watching television and waiting for the sun. It wasn’t the winter that was the problem. It was me. 

I was living a boring life. I was spending my hours working or watching television. Yes, there was plenty of music too and time with friends, but in one crashing realization, I discovered that I was not living in Montana. Yes, I was in Montana, in my house, just twenty miles from the Great Divide, but I was not living in Montana the way I had set out to do when I was 17. I wasn’t looking out the windows at the majesty that drew me to this place. I was working a job and going through the paces as if I was anybody anywhere, just making a living. I could have been in Spokane or Toledo for how much I took advantage of the place that I had chosen to live. I hadn’t been to the mountains in six months or more. 

When I came to this place, I came here for a reason. Sure, there is all that mumbo jumbo about Montana being God’s country. There are plenty of people who revere Montana for its recreation opportunities and calculable value. To many, it represents a last bastion of a certain type of unspoiled place that is all too rare and sought after by modern society. The nickname “Last Best Place” leads many dreamers here, looking for a slice of the pie. I scoff at this, but I also partake in it. Having been all around the globe, I can scientifically say that Montana is my favorite place in the whole world. I can’t exactly describe why I know this in my soul, but there is some magical concoction of geography, weather, distance, air, sky, isolation and quiet that makes this location my home.

And yet, sometime in the last year, I slipped. I got caught up in life at its most menial and basic. I forgot where I was in the world and why I was here. It is not that my life was bad or unhappy; I was contributing to my community, playing with my friends, working towards other life goals with my fiance and guitar; but I wasn’t in Montana in the way I should be. I wasn’t attending my church. I was out of balance with the world, with myself. I don’t live here to work all the time. I don’t live here to “save Montana'' from the forces of progress and development. I don’t live here because of the brand of toughness and independence that is often associated with the wilderness and isolation. I live here because I chose this life, with all of its trials and rewards. I live here because I belong here. And just as traditional churches are the way most people connect with their spiritual center, my church is on the backroads of Montana, at sunrise, with a stiff wind in my face and Corb Lund singing hymns. It is here in this church where I remember how lucky I am to be here and be alive. And, gosh, it feels good to be home.