Show the way

By Brad Henderson

Paul Wilkes, author of “Beyond the Walls, ” writes of a trip to Mepkin Abbey one night: “Into the black, moonless night I walked slowly and carefully along the asphalt roadway leading from the cloistered buildings to the main road of the old plantation, a broad lane elegantly lined with side buoys of live oaks. As an aid to both visitor and monk alike, tiny lights have been spaced along the roadway and the paths branching off toward the monastery buildings and guest cottages, lest our feet go astray. But as I tried to make my way, I found the lights disorienting. They formed strange patterns, not a clearly marked path. The glare of the lights--few watts that they were--seemed to blind me, their halos overlapping into luminescent fields. I was having great difficulty making a trip that, in daylight, I had made easily many times before. My step slowed. I became increasingly tentative, worried that I would fall into the ditch that runs along some portions of the road. Advancing hesitantly, I could see up ahead that the lights soon ended; I would have to find the rest of the way to the main boulevard without their assistance. Now I was even more concerned. As unreliable a guide as they had proved to be--to my eyes at least--they were something. At least they had given me the impression that I knew where I was and where I was going. I reached the last light. My heart was pounding as I took the next few steps. And then a remarkable thing happened. It was not a moonless night at all. A dull light, coming from an imperceptible course, shone upon the roadway just enough for me to see where my next step should be. I could not see far ahead, nor discern any pattern for a potential path--as I had theoretically been able to do with the tiny, deluding lights moments before. But this omniscient glow, whatever its source, was ample for the moment-- provided I asked no more of it than guidance for the next step. And after all, how many steps was I taking at once? One. Then another. And another. I reached the main road and turned right. The light was with me, step by step. ” “Beyond the Walls, ” pp. 26-27, Image Books, 1999