DAY 28 - Gooding, ID - 552 miles from home
- Esther Lisa Tishman
- Aug 1
- 3 min read
[written on the morning of Aug 1, day 29...]
Pilgrimages are lonesome - but not necessarily lonely. Lonesome as in solitary, reflective. Perhaps a touch mournful. On the road I keep finding myself wanting to photograph a single stand of sunflowers. An open and empty gate. A stop sign, or a calf, finding its shimmering echo in the water. This quality of the Walk sometimes brings me to tears - a melancholy that isn't comfortable, but that even so I wouldn't want to trade for all the cheerfulness I also feel on the trail (take that pint of farm fresh chocolate milk at Gooding's Pocket Creamery, for instance!)
I'm realizing, as I walk, that the other side of cheerfulness isn't "cheer-less-ness" but instead something more like this lonesome feeling. Hank Williams and Patsy Cline territory. This sense that, no matter how fast or far I walk, I'm always going be right here, standing directly over my own two feet. Or as Buckaroo Banzai and Jon Kabat-Zinn might say: no matter where you go, there you are!
This idea of 'standing over my own two feet' brings me back to the question of faith. Faith in America. Faith in America's faithful. We spent a large chunk of the day in the extraordinarily good hands of Reverend Amanda-Gayle Reed and her congregants at the Gooding United Methodist Church. Claire and Gary Major opened their home to us (showers, laundry, fresh coffee) - our conversation ranging from French puppet shows (as a French teacher in the 1970s Claire designed a multidisciplinary puppetry troupe that toured highschools), to the best kind of cruising (go to Alaska, Gary says), to what it's like to swim blue in a red sea. And then there was the church potluck. Carolyn's Armenian cucumbers, and her potatoes au gratin! Helen's baked beans (which may have stolen the show)! Fried chicken and German chocolate cake! My stomach protested after I took seconds, but I told it to be a big girl and keep eating.
Like so many of the traditional churches we're encountering on this trek, the Gooding UMC has a gorgeous, historic building - and an aging, declining congregation. Covid hit them hard, as it did so many faith communities. Even so, the community is holding its own and rebuilding. Offering space to support groups and youth groups - modeling the welcome message at its front door. Reverend Amanda-Gayle, openly LGBT, has held her position as pastor longer than any faith leader in recent times (8 years). Lay Leader Jackie Jordan brings a GenZ sensibility to the church, managing the Zoom feed at Sunday worship.
And as we arrived, outside the church, I happened to meet Chris from Twin Falls. He was parked, easing a bent fender on his trailer before taking off again - hauling a 1950s Buick to a buyer from Salt Lake City. Chris fetches scrap parts and machines - old cars especially - and flips them. He pointed out the front bumper - beautiful, rusted and broken of course, but a damn near work of art. "That alone is worth a grand, but I'll give it to this guy for $200. He's coming all the way from Salt Lake." Wait, Chris, you can't sell yourself short that way, I said. You've already been hauling all day and put in so much work! The day was hot, Chris was sweating, the sun was beating down. He just shrugged and repeated simply: "He's coming all the way from Salt Lake."
How to have faith? And what do you do with a handful of guns and grenades? My last thought for the day comes from a snapshot of where I started: at Love's truckstop in Bliss, where I marveled at the selection of pens and keychains.
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