Sunday, March 12, 2017

Wrong turn

Yesterday driving thought Eastern Mississippi on the way home, we came to a T intersection where you go right or left. We've been at this intersection many times, but I remember the first time we were here.

We'd taken an unfamiliar road.  As we sat at the intersection, I looked left and right searching for clues that would tell me which way to go. A road sign that said take a  left to go to Rick and Jilda's house would have been encouraging. But there were no signs. It's a lonely place, so we sat there debating. The road atlas was in the trunk, and I could have put the car in park, flipped the trunk lid and fetched the map, but as a man, that's almost like cheating. Jilda suggested we go to the right, so I took a left.

A few miles down the road, we came to a beautiful old Methodist Church in Giger, Alabama. From the parking lot of that church, I could have thrown a rock to Mississippi.  Stepping out of the car, I snapped some pictures.

The church felt like a sacred place. Standing in front, I could hear a crow cawing off in the distance. Even thought the church was on a state highway, I couldn't hear the sound of whining tires on asphalt from either direction.

I fetched the atlas from the trunk, and as I took pictures, Jilda sat on the hood trying to figure out where we were, and which way to go to get home. 

"We should have gone the other way." "Hmmm." I said,  "Why didn't you say so." She was not amused. 

A few hours we pulled into our driveway. The thing about taking the wrong turn is that it's rarely terminal. Most of the time you go in the wrong direction for a while, but at some point you realize it, do a course correction, and find your way home. My philosophy is, "We're on a sphere. We could keep driving in the same direction, and one day we'd wind up back to where we are."

The thing about taking a wrong turn is that you can always turn around and backtrack. But sometimes you see things you would never have seen. 


10 comments:

  1. Going the wrong way turned out to be a good thing...did your wife buy that?

    This follows the 50/50/90 law. If you have a decision to make where the odds are 50/50, you will be wrong 90$ of the time.

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  2. Wrong turns are very often right. In life, and on the road.

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  3. Beautiful church. My first name in travel was 'Wrong way Jack' Then it morphed into 'U-Turn Jack' Now I have that 'splaination, "If I hadn't came this way, just look what you would have missed.
    THANKS!
    BTW Joeh is rite!

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  4. The church is beautiful. As a person whose mother was constantly getting lost I learned at a very young age that a wrong turn leads to adventure.

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  5. It reminds me of the time we were in Montreal. I was the navigator and my husband drove. I told him take the right to go into the tunnel but he took a left and we drove for miles through the country. It was nice a beautiful drive but I suspect my husband has a problem with which way is right and which way is left. haha. He does it every time. Maybe I should give him the wrong direction.
    Beautiful little church.
    Hugs,
    Julia

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  6. Great philosophy ... tho' I admit to panicking one late night while on a desolate stretch of Alabama blacktop with no cell signal!

    Beautiful photo. Reminds me a bit of Echoes of Time's stuff. (https://www.facebook.com/Echoes-Of-Time-173729432822112/)

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  7. This church looks so beautiful and I love the stained glass windows! Men! Why do men hate to look at the map or take advice from us?? Actually my hubby knows i am quite good in navigating so he's Ok in letting me direct him. When not in a hurry, it's actually nice to get "lost" unless you end up in some ghetto and you will soon become bait.

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  8. Yes, we live on a sphere. Buddha once said if you sit in one place long enough the world will come to YOU!

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  9. Anonymous4:32 PM

    You may think I'm crazy, but I can feel whether I'm going north. south, east or west!!

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  10. Sometimes our wrong turns take us to the most amazing places

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