Rocks, they're everywhere. Perhaps they tell a story if your geology is better than mine. But for many ages people have used stone to pass messages and to others over long stretches of time. Piles of stones like this one mark trail heads through the wilderness in the arctic and like this pile, they offer a message of encouragement from those who have passed this way previously to those who will come.
Placing stones together, on top of one another in this way, is a curiously human endeavor. It is a way to add your voice to the landscape, "I was here and enjoyed it." Other too, add their voices and a conversation begins along the trail, over time. You can hear these voices with your eyes, and imagine their messages with your heart.
Occasionally, along the trail, enough people will pass over a long enough time frame and enough
stones will be gathered and carefully placed together, that the character of their hope will give rise to a substantial word sent along the trail of time to future pedestrians, saying something like: "We passed this way and hoped to make your way easier . May you too walk upon our effort and share our vision to help others pass this way as well." When you walk across such expressions you can't help but hear the music of the effort that has now echoed through time. In this case some 800 years.
I wonder, how we today will act in faith together that our joint effort and expression will leave a lasting monument, a commentary of our time and a gift to those who will walk by this place in times to come.
