Prayer Flags

The Prayer Flags location is one I came across a couple of years ago while biking the McQueen’s Island Historic Trail for the first time. The trail from the parking lot located at the entrance of Fort Pulaski to the prayer flags location at the end of the trail is six miles. It makes for a nice twelve mile out and back bicycle ride. There is also a parking lot located in the middle, three mile before you get to Fort Pulaski which cuts the round trip down to six miles.

Not only are there prayer flags but an assortment of stuff that the rivers wash up along the edge of the trail. People gather these items along their way so they can hang them in the Live Oak tree along with the flags. Most of the hard hats, large rope, bottles, drift wood, old fishing rods, you name it looked very familiar to me growing up around the rivers in the Savannah area. The six to eight foot tidal rise and fall each day pushes up all kinds of trash to treasure. It looked like some kind of art exhibit to me but the flags looked out of place. What are the flags all about I thought to myself? So I climb off my bicycle and up onto one of the picnic tables and begin to read the flags. Wow I thought, people are writing some kind of prayers. It did not take long to see that most of the flags had messages that were very sincere and very serious. The people writing these words believe in a God that is listening and cares. I believe the flags were put up first by someone who believes in God then other people began to hang all the other stuff. I must admit from a distance is does look like some kind of abstract art exhibit but it does not take long to see that the flags reveal something much deeper. It is people crying out to God for the need of a friend or family member or someone calling out to God for help themselves. You may find it strange for people to write a prayer on a flag and hang it in a tree and expect God to know it or respond to it. I think that the important thing is that we call upon God. How we do it is not so important. I know when my children send me a text or email and I read it on a computer or phone screen the important thing is that they let me know what is going on or what it is that they have need of. There does come a time when talking is good, but the important thing is to communicate often. God Himself once wrote messages on stone tables and gave it to Moses. I guess we can think of that as today’s email or sticky notes.

Around the end of 2010 I had decided to make a movie with the flags. So in February of 2011 I packed up my camera gear into my Kata backpack, grabbed my tripod and slider, put my bicycle in the van and headed down to the middle parking lot. With 35lbs of camera gear on my back I made the three mile bicycle ride and begin filming. It was a beautiful Monday morning to enjoy the outdoors but very few to no people on the trail that day. So as I was finishing up with some last shots in rode Melanie and Chris and we greeted each other and they were about to head back out when I ask if they minded being in the movie. They both agreed so I ask them to ride back in and around the tree and have a seat on the end picnic table, all unscripted and unrehearsed, one take and it was over. I can’t thank them enough for being so willing and for Chris serving our country in the military, what a beautiful couple, Thank you. I don’t always have a microphone on my camera but this day I did so I could read the flags out loud. This way I would be sure as to know what was on them. Not sure how or if I would use the words that day but later I decided to ask some friends at church to do voice over’s of the prayers for me. Of course they were very willing too, so out came the MacBook and GarageBand and the rest of the story is in the film. Thank you, Melissa, Kelly, Lindsay, Zac, and Jonathan for being such great friends.

Thank you all for viewing my videos and reading my blog.

If you are in the Savannah, Georgia or Tybee Island area be sure to go out and enjoy the McQueen’s Island Trail.

For more information on the trail please visit these websites.
http://www.chathamcounty.org/pwps_mcqueen.html
http://www.n2trailhiking.com/HikePages/HikePage.aspx?HikeID=862