(With apologies to Kruder & Dorfmeister)Glacier National Park has an extensive shuttle system that traverses the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which from this point forward has been renamed by me to the About-to-Fall-Off-A-Cliff-Highway. The road is crumbly, in disrepair, pot-holed, and narrows meanly to a single lane at numerous points. To mitigate for the sorry state of the road, shuttles haul campers, climbers, hikers, and folks just too chicken to drive it themselves up and over the Continental Divide every fifteeen minutes. For free you get to go to the sun rather than hurdle to your death--not a bad deal.
Anyhow, I was on a shuttle with a guy named Ronald. Three times. Ronald looked like a hippy version of Colonel Sanders, and he was on a mission. See, Ronald got called by God a couple days ago to go to Glacier National Park and witness his "wonders." Ronald had not been expecting this summons, nor had he been expecting to be re-diagnosed with cancer a couple days prior to the summons. But when God told Ronald to go to Glacier National Park last Thursday, Ronald went. My encounters with Ronald were mostly unremarkable as he was involved in telling anyone who would listen (I was trying to hide myself in the corners of any shuttle he was on) about his past as a bad Italian businessman who had stage 4 cancer previously who had been cured by the Lord around six years ago and who knew Elvis Presley and was friends with him and who owned a 34 foot motor home, etc. etc. Because Ronald was sick, perfect strangers often entered in the most bizarre conversations with him, many of which I overheard.
My luck in avoiding active discussions with Ronald ran out day 2. I got on a shuttle and there was Ronald and oddly, just one other guy, the driver. I headed to the back corner of the shuttle to sit low and listen miserably to Ronald tell the driver, Dusty, about his cancer, about his summons from God, and about the fact he knew Elvis Presley, who, by the way, wore both a Star of David and a cross, because, Ronald said, "Elvis liked them both." Dusty, it turned out, was a Penecostal preacher who just happened to also drive a shuttle bus this summer in Glacier National Park before heading up to Alaska to open a church in Cordoba. This is roughly the conversation that ensued.
Dusty: It's no accident we three are on this shuttle together today. Do you believe you can be healed, Ronald?
Ronald: I don't know if God will take this cancer away.
Dusty: If God can make mountains like this, he can heal you Ronald.
Ronald: I don't believe in chance. There's a reason we three are here. Let's pray.
Me [pointing]: There's a couple of mountain goats.
Ronald: We're all in this together, young lady, anytime you start thinking you're really alone, you might as well commit suicide.
Dusty: Gods' wonders are all around us. I'm amazed and in awe every day I come to work. He can heal you Ronald. We three can pray about it.
Me [politely]: You must really like your job.
Dusty: I do, I do. Every day, the Lord shows himself to me.
Ronald: Well, pray for me.
Dusty: I will and for her, too.
Now, it might have seemed mean-spirited of me to point out the mountain goats. I really was not trying to change the subject, but was genuinely excited to see the goats, and I'm sure the guy really does like his job. And I suppose the prayers didn't hurt anything either...I couldn't help it when I said, "OK, but please, please don't close your eyes." At least they laughed.
Ronald, I'm praying for you. Good luck. Picture is of view outside that shuttle, which delivered us all safely to Avalanche Creek. Amen.
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