FireQuill Publications
The Short Stories And Bible Studies
The Short Stories And Bible Studies
of Kathy Kearney
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Believe the Compass 
One of my favorite writers is Louise Dickenson Rich. Louise and her family lived deep in the Maine woods in the 1940's. So deep that you brought in supplies twice a year. If you miscalculated and ran out of canned milk, you made biscuits with water, ate your cereal dry, and hoped for an early thaw. But Louise, her husband, and two children thrived in their forest primeval. A trip to the “outside” as she called town only hastened her desire to return to her beloved forest depths.
One night a terrible storm awakened Louise and her family. She and her husband gathered the kids into their room where they huddled all night listening as the forest crashed madly about them. They fully expected to be crushed under a roof-crushing pine before daylight.
Next morning they discovered a landscape that looked as though a giant child had thrown a tinker toy tantrum. Huge, hundred-year old trees had been snapped in two and hurled great distances by the rampaging wind. The carnage was eerie and frightening. Next to a forest fire it was the most devastating thing that could happen in the woods.
Later that day, Emily decided to hike to a pond some miles away to check on damage. The usual method of relying upon landmarks was impossible. The familiar groves and clumps of trees were either severely altered or altogether gone.
A friend walked over to her as she looked in puzzlement at the mess before her.
He held out a compass to her telling her to pin it to her shirt. He admonished Louise to follow it, and it alone. He warned her not to rely on her own senses, or any impulse that she was headed in the wrong direction.
Much ado about nothing, Louise grudgingly thought as she set off with the compass pinned inside her shirt pocket. As she marched over the rise beyond the house, the man's cry sallied over the devastated landscape reminding her to believe the compass.
Using the compass, Louise trod an uneventful journey to the pond. Upon completion of her task, she headed for home.
After about fifteen minutes, she had the distinct impression she was walking in the wrong direction. She checked the compass again. No, she was headed correctly. But it couldn't be right. She felt she was veering to the left. Surely, she needed to turn right. Every five minutes she checked the compass, and every five minutes it told her she was on target. But it must be wrong, she thought in a panic. It simply did not feel right.
She found herself fighting down a rising urge to cut to the right. As she struggled to obey the compass, it was as though something alive twisted and turned inside her, demanding that she swerve from the direction to which the compass pointed. By now she didn't know if it was her best friend, or her worst enemy.
