Sixteen years ago, right after Becky and I were married, we cut our hair short, packed three days of clothes, threw them in the back of a black Jeep Wrangler with the top down, and took off on a three-week cross-country honeymoon expedition armed only with the Rand McNally Northern Virginia Street Map that one of us dopily packed in place of the road atlas. We had no destination in mind and no hotel reservations. Along the way, we encountered snow, a tornado, a rock slide, giant mosquitoes, and a darts convention. It was the best trip I’ve ever taken.

Some people like to travel with a careful plan and itinerary, but I’m not one of them, and I’m lucky that neither is Becky. The thrill of the trip, to us, is in the unexpected places and turns, not in the keeping of a good schedule. So when we dropped off the kids at camp this summer, we recreated the trip on a smaller scale, heading west in a later-model Wrangler, this time with a GPS receiver. But we set it to avoid highways, and entered only tentative destinations to make sure we stayed close to the Mississippi River. We wanted some great vistas, like the one we enjoyed over dinner in Burlington, Iowa our first night out.

Our little electronic guide was happy to oblige, and sent us through the heart of towns we previously had known only as good places to stop on I-80 for gas and McDonald’s. Our progress was wonderfully slow and new. In Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled,” the author “looked down one [road] as far as [he] could to where it bent in the undergrowth, then took the other as just as fair and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear.” By contrast, ours were long and narrow dirt roads surrounded by 10-foot high corn fields, and had we looked down one as far as we could without the GPS, we’d have assumed that it was a private road leading to a machine shed.

The Myers-Briggs tells me I’m a hard-core “J,” meaning that I’ll normally prefer the destination to the journey, but Luke’s Gospel tells us that disciples came to know Jesus in their conversations on the way to Emmaus. It’s fall, and time to set and meet goals, keep appointments, and cross items off the task list that starts again to grow longer and longer. The GPS is set to use highways again. But the summer was a refreshment, and reminds me not to get so lost in elusive destinations that I can’t see Jesus winking to me from the corn fields as we travel unlikely roads together this year.

Flower Memorials are a meaningful way to remember or celebrate and assist the Altar Guild in the preparation of the Sunday Eucharist, or other liturgical events.

To make a flower memorial, simply complete a blue gift card and enclose it with a check in a giving envelope. Gift cards and giving envelopes can be found in the pews or on the table at the entrance to the church. Checks should be made out to the Church of the Transfiguration, with “Flower Memorial” in the memo field. You can leave the envelope in the offering plate, or mail it to the church office.