Praying for Charlie and our Family at Eagle Rock!

View from Eagle Rock

For the past few weeks, I've been taking two of my young grandsons hiking. We've had three adventures so far. Our first hike was the Fishers Hill Battlefield in Strasburg. We stopped and read every historical marker to follow the progression of the battle. It always makes me sad to think of all the men killed in that useless war. 

But it was a good starter hike -- less than two miles and much of it in a grassy meadow with only a little up and down. And it was an opportunity for a history lesson for two homeschoolers.

Are You on the Bridge or in the Tunnel?

[Take a trip across the 23 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel as a metaphor of life's journey. Turn off the sound if you don't want to listen to the obnoxious music in the video.]

Some images are perfect metaphors for life's journey. Before Mass today, I was reading the morning devotion from Benedictus, Psalm 142, a pretty gloomy reflection:

For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to the earth. He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old: and my spirit is in anguish within me....

The image that popped into my head as I read this was the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. (I have a weird brain!)  If you've never driven that route, it's a 23-mile bridge/tunnel, mostly above water but with two mile-long tunnels taking you deep under the bay. I've been through it once years ago and don't really have any desire to repeat the experience, although it is an impressive engineering marvel.