EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on June 14, 2024.
By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks
Last weekend I was invited to my hometown to sell my book as part of an annual classic car show hosted each June.
The organizers situated me with local craft fair vendors in a grassy area just off downtown, a place known as Canon Park, which I assume was named for the World War I era cannon that used to reside on that spot when I was growing up. This little plot of land also would have sat adjacent to the train tracks that used to run up to the town’s elevator.
Shelley and I arrived early, and set up a table with my books and signage next to a beautiful tree, which judging by its girth, might have been nearly a century old. And I’d certainly come to appreciate the shade its mighty crown provided as the day wore on and the early summer sun poured down on us.
I was both nervous to be home after 30-some years, and excited at the prospect whom I might meet throughout the day.
But then a peculiar thing happened.
At some point I looked down and realized that our little bookshop was sitting atop about a four foot wide strip of gravel that lay between to cement rails, and the path ran a ways back toward where the railroad tracks would have been. It dawned on me that it was a cinder rock path, the kind that was common before paved sidewalks were the norm.
And that’s when the epiphany hit …
This was the walking path that had led up to the front doors of the long ago railroad passenger depot that was still standing when I had moved to town in the 1980s. If I turned around from the table where I was selling books, the depot’s front door wouldn’t have been more than 20 yards away.
Certainly, a cool piece of history in itself, but what made the moment mysteriously divine was the realization that there I was in Fertile, Minn., selling a book about my faith that was largely forged by my years spent being raised by a single mother.
And it was the former railroad passenger depot that I was now standing in front of that had brought my mom’s family to Fertile more than 90 years before, as my grandfather had worked in that very depot as a railroad porter and agent.
I was gobsmacked!
The moment was knee-weakening. I could only wonder in amazement at what my mother looking down from heaven alongside her own parents was thinking watching life come full circle for me.
Imagine that: 90-some years after my grandparents had moved to town for a railroad job, which eventually led to my mother and father meeting, ultimately led me to a small craft fair where I was selling a book about my faith formation standing in front of the very same depot.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit’s work exceeds human words. Amen.
Devlyn Brooks is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and serves Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.
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