On the way home from a Cenacle celebration on the east coast this past October, Sister Elizabeth and I decided to take a detour by way of the Okefenokee Swamp. We headed inland, thinking to spend the night in Waycross, Georgia, then zip over to the swamp the following morning.
“Should we call ahead and make a reservation?” we asked each other. We finally decided that with several motels in Waycross, which is not exactly the tourist capital of the Southeast, it was more than likely that vacancies would be a dime a dozen.
We arrived in Waycross about 7:00 p.m., and the first motel we approached simply waved us away with no explanation. At the second one we were told that everything in town was booked, with the possible exception of one suspiciously timeworn place.
“Why,” I asked, “are all the motel rooms in Waycross, Georgia, filled on a Tuesday night?”
It appeared that there was some sort of housing convention going on. Who would have thought?
The two employees at the desk asked if we would like them to call ahead and make a reservation for us in a nearby town.
“Where would you suggest?”
Two small towns were mentioned, and we settled on Jesup, which turned out to be not so near at all — about an hour away from Waycross and on a different highway from the one on which we had come. By this time Sister Elizabeth and I were both tired, but off we went toward Jesup, trying to look on the positive side of events.
Between Waycross and Jesup we glimpsed a small sign on the left side of the road. “CHAMPION TURKEY OAK,” it read, with an arrow pointing to the left. What was a turkey oak? I made a vague resolution to check it out.
To make a long story short, we arrived in Jesup, where the motel was spotlessly clean, where lights had been turned on to welcome us, where the small staff was exceptionally caring, where we tumbled into our beds exhausted, and where the next morning we had a complementary breakfast better than any I’ve ever eaten in a motel.
On the road again, backtracking toward Waycross and the Okefenokee, we passed through a town called Screven. There we saw the sign pointing toward the champion turkey oak, so we made a sharp turn in the direction of the arrow.
However, after proceeding for some way, no turkey oak was to be found (assuming we would have recognized one had we seen it), so we stopped to ask directions from an elderly woman coming out of a school building. We headed off again, soon to find ourselves wandering fruitlessly around the quiet streets of Screven.
As we were beginning to despair of finding the turkey oak, along came a car which to our surprise turned out to be driven by the woman we had met outside the school. Having realized that she had given us the wrong directions, she had chased us down. She called out, “If you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to the turkey oak” — which she did.
It was not a beautiful tree, although it is the largest of its kind in the country. Nevertheless we were duly impressed and took pictures to record the event. (Later we learned that this tree is called a turkey oak because its leaves resemble a turkey’s foot.)
The night before, we had been sure that not calling ahead to make a motel reservation had been a mistake. We had traveled more than two hours out of the way by the time we finally got to the Okefenokee. But despite everything, I am certain that we were on the right road.
In Jesup, we had the consolation of tender loving care by the operators of the motel, and they had the consolation of providing that care for us and receiving our gratitude. The Screven resident had the consolation of showing us kindness beyond the call of duty, and we had the consolation of receiving her kindness. What was bestowed on us was of far greater value than the ordinary comfort of stopping early in the evening without fatigue and without incident.
It is important not to forget moments like this: occasions when we seem to be off course, only to discover that we are just where we were meant to be. Perhaps we had been on the right road all along. Or perhaps we really had made a mess of things, and God, always eager to do good for us, transformed what could well have been a road fraught with peril into a path radiant with grace. Those who have eyes to see, let them see.
Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? (Mark 8:18)