sitting in a playhouse

Guess where I am!!

...montana.

Sometimes it feels like we will never get out of this place, but I can't say I'm terribly unhappy about it. Montana is absolutely gorgeous! The first week was filled with mountainous terrain, but we've since flattened out into the prairie land. The morning before last, we were greeted by an incredible sunrise.  There are no trees here to obstruct the view and there are remnants of flood waters resting on the plains. This makes for a breathtaking moment as the earth surrenders its embrace to the sun. The drama of the sky is perfectly mirrored in the standing water on the ground. I felt as if I were drowning in light. The many pictures I took could never do the scene justice. Terribly frustrating, yet incredibly reassuring. Wild beauty shouldn't be captured by a handful of mega pixels. Knowing that I could revisit a moment that made me feel so loved by Our Father would certainly sully it's sweet memory. Instead, I am pushed forward to discover another tender pass with the hand of God. And when my eyes are closed to the wonderland He eagerly laid before me, perhaps I will have the priceless grace to find Him within my heart.

Surprisingly, finding the time to be with The Lord is a bit of a challenge. We certainly spend a great deal of time in prayer. Daily mass is almost always at the start of our day. We pray the Liturgy of the Hours as a group twice a day. The rosary and all it's mysteries are recited throughout every shift. Every meal is blessed with a prayer. And yet, something is lacking. It is the quiet. The stillness of contemplative prayer is something many of us are pining for. We would jump at the chance to spend an hour of silence in a roadside chapel. Constant walking often equates constant talking. And even in the lulls of conversation, I find it hard to open my heart fully to the Lord with another body filling the space next to me.

As I write, I am relishing the fact that there isn't a living person within 200 feet of my swarming thoughts and I. There is a wooden playhouse on the edge of the playground at this campsite. The children are distracted by the pool and I have this entire box of sand to myself. The wind is playing with my hair and whatever the birds are talking about certainly has a joyous tone to it. I have time to revel in something as simple as feeling my bones shift in my skin. Sitting here, burrowing my toes in the sand and watching kids splash in the water brings me back to the Peace of the Lord. In moments like this I am able to recoop, remember, and meditate on the path I have been led to.

With that, I am reminded of a verse in Luke's gospel.
"Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road?"
A great saint by the name Catherine of Sienna once said that if we become who we are meant to be, we will set the world on fire. I very much doubt that whatever is happening within me could be mistaken for   a great source of heat. My core is barely heated by a spark. Perhaps as I learn to speak with the Lord on the road, he will bring me to His furnace of Love and my little spark will be consumed. The world is much too cold to willingly deny it the tiniest bit of warmth.

showering in the sink

So, we're still in Montana. This time we're staying in Billings.. probably the biggest concentration of people in the entire state. Up until now most signs of life consist of cows and herds of white tail deer. This weekend Kathlene, Jessica, and I are staying with the Hendershots. Their daughter Nichole participated in the Northern Walk in 2008. They prepared an awesome spaghetti dinner for all the walkers followed by this crazy thing Mrs. Hendershot calls a "brownie bar". She definitely shouldn't have let me in on that one. I smothered my brownie in vanilla ice cream, Andes mints, peanut butter, white chocolate and dark chocolate chips, walnuts, chocolate syrup, and a thick layer of sprinkles. I thought it a masterpiece, but everyone else questioned the presence of a brownie under my mass of confection.

{yes, pink crowns :) }

It's been a Friday full of pleasure. We got to eat pie for breakfast in a local diner here. Afterwards, the night shift crew parked the RV in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We spent a good deal of time being royal fools there (hopefully pictures to come!) before we decided to take our goofballery next door to Toys R' Us. Upon leaving, Kathlene put me inside an abandoned shopping cart and made sure to hit every pot hole on the way to the cart corral. If I had been fighting sleep, that joy ride made me the victor over it. We had an absolutely brilliant afternoon together, but the rest of our week has certainly not been peaches.

Despite the many perks of walking throughout the night, the lack of sleep began to take it's toll after only a couple of shifts. Wednesday evening I woke up and hobbled over to the bath house to prepare for the upcoming night walk. I locked the shower door and anxiously awaited the arrival of scalding hot water. Kathlene had spoken mounds of praise over this particular bath house. Apparently it was to be the best shower I'd had since embarking on our journey. And since we have fostered such a deep appreciation for hot sprays of water these past three weeks, I was ready for it to be the best shower of my life. But to my dismay, the water was colder than the icy rain of the mountains. I was not to be discouraged. I waited patiently for almost ten minutes, knowing that payoff was in sight. But still the hot water didn't come. Convinced that the problem lie in this particular shower's pipes, I quickly dressed and moved to the next shower stall. After ten seconds in that cold box, I had had enough. Time was drawing short. So, reluctantly, I moved to the bathroom sink and sullenly began washing my hair beneath the nozzle. After shampooing, I moved on to washing my forearms and toes with grudging satisfaction. I was not to be inconvenienced out of a chance to rinse the grime of travel from my person. At this point, an elderly woman stumbled into the scene. Embarrassed, I explained my predicament. So she fetched the woman on duty in the office and I explained once more why I was dripping body wash into the hand sink. The attendant walked into the troublesome stall, turned a knob and immediately exclaimed at its heat. My jaw dropped. She had to be lying. But it wasn't so...

 I had unwittingly had the water dial on cold the entire time. Mortified, I dabbed at my soggy toes and scampered into the warmth of the shower stall. I thanked God over and over that the woman had not been friendly enough to ask where I was from. Alabama doesn't need another reason to be the butt of jokes. And it doesn't help that the Good Lord blessed me with natural golden locks. Adding insult to injury, to be sure.

God didn't think that was funny enough, so as soon as my team began walking that night He made sure to pull all the stops out of the sky. "I don't think you showered enough, Katie, so I'm just here to bring you some of my own showers!" He said. Watery daggers cascaded upon our frigid bodies, their points only sharpened by a wind that seemed to push us one step backward for every two steps we took forward. The temperature fell below 40, and my walking partner was losing morale fast. Thankfully, I know my guardian angel to be an entity of incredible cheer and asked that he bring me the joy of the Lord on this dark night. He didn't delay. Quite suddenly, I found myself floating on a dry cloud of optimism. I quite forgot about being soaked to the bone, and the howling wind almost took on a persona of friendliness.

Distracting my partner from misery became my mission. So we talked and talked and talked. Of things spiritual, relational, and nonsensical. And when we could no longer form a coherent thought, we prayed. Finally, we saw the red hazard lights of the support fan flashing in the distance. Surely no more than a mile away. The next mile marker came and went-- and we soon realized that there were actually two more to endure. We had already prayed all the mysteries of the Holy Rosary and recited two Divine Mercy Chaplets. What to do? We began invoking the name of every saint that ever made his way into the files of our memory. "St. Jude, pray for us! St. Rita, St. Perpetua, St. Jospeph, pray for us!!!" On and on it went. Back and forth, we recited the longest Litany of Saints I'm sure was ever composed. When we could no longer rack our brains for names of holy men and women, we beseeched every rank of angel conceivable. Choirs, thrones, principalities, pray for us! 


And suddenly...
it was over.
We had made it to the van!!
Thanks be to God, it was over! By far the most difficult night I've endured thus far. And yet, it was the night I felt the most encouraged and assured. That night I learned to praise God in a physical storm I thought would master me. And now I pray He will show me to better love Him when I'm drowning in the torrents of inward conflict.

under a big sky

We are in Montana! A little town called Butte to be specific. It's a rough character place full of the "good folks". Jessica, Amelia, Naimh, and I are staying with the Freemans. They are such a beautiful family and such an encouraging example of a christian home. Last night we played several rounds of Cornhole (which is definitely an East Coast game) and sat around a fire talking for hours. Mr. Freeman let me take my first sip of mead! Shh... don't tell anyone. ;)

The Northern Walk left Seattle, Washington on May 22. Can you believe we have covered over 300 miles since we began walking for Life? Barely two weeks have passed, but I feel like this is all I've ever known. Our team has quickly become a closeknit family. God could not have chosen a better dynamic.

{our team before Naimh joined us from Ireland}

Here is how our system works..
There are 11 people on our team. Seven girls, four boys. We split into two groups. One walks all day, the other walks all night. Within a group we divide further into two groups of 2 or 3. One of these groups hits the pavement to knock out 15-20 miles of walking, while the other group stays in the support van and jumps ahead every five miles to make sure the walkers are safe. When the first group of walkers are finished, the van group trades and begins their trek. At night the 11 of us come together at the RV for dinner and evening prayer. Then the night shift has their turn with the road. In the morning, we usually meet at the closest church offering daily mass. Afterwards, we all have breakfast and morning prayer together and the routine begins again.

I never expected walking across the country to be so taxing. Go figure, right? I thought we would meander along the highway at a leisurely pace, happily waving to the passersby as we share our peaceful witness.... I was so wrong. We aren't walking. We practically have to run to make good time and not get behind. Our feet are peppered with blisters, and some of us are limping because of pulled tendons and swollen muscles. If it's raining, we walk. If it's cold, we walk. If we hear coyotes off the road, we walk. Nothing can stop us. Unless it's road construction. :/ Sometimes we hear rude honks as people flip us "the finger". Other times people want to make sure we notice them and scream profanities. A few days ago a car tried to run a walker off the road. However, support for our mission far outweighs the honks and profanity.

On the weekends we stop in major cities to pray before abortion mills and planned parenthood clinics. Last week, we made our last stop at a clinic in Washington. Two elderly gentelmen (obviously Catholic) were setting up large posters of Our Lady. When it became clear that they were protesting the evil occuring within the clinic, our group crossed the street and they joined us in praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, along with a couple of rosaries. It was a beautiful thing to stand in peaceful solidarity with these two strangers. That little hour did more for my morale than hot food, sleep, or sympathetic honks could acheive.

For all the positive response and prayers offered on our behalf, I still struggle some days to give this mission my all. It's terribly humbling to watch the parishioners of these towns empty their pockets to support us, and know that inwardly I should be doing so much more. There are days when I have forgotten completely why I am on the road. It just matters that I am there and that I finish as quickly as possible. If it weren't for the graces we recieve by attending daily Mass and reciting the rosary, I'm not sure I could do this. Sometimes the only coherent thought I can conjure up is a mantra I use to propel myself into the next milestone: "It's all for the babies. For the sake of your powerful wounds, Jesus, give us strength". On the hardest days, I have repeated that prayer over and over, step by step, mile by mile. Usually when one finds himself in pain or out of breath, he can stop and rest for a while. Rid himself of what ails. Not here. Here you endure, you sacrifice, and you pray. Wednesday we walked through a chilly downpour. The cars on the highway only increased our discomfort. We were constantly sprayed by tires and blasts of wind. I made the mistake of wearing shorts, and honestly I wanted to cry I was so miserable. To get me through the pain I prayed that every drop of rain could be transformed into a soul saved by our sacrifice. I know we saved souls that day, and every other day we have walked. There is no question that our prayers and our witness are turning hearts and changing minds. I thank God he gave my heart such a passion for Life.