Wisdom from the Woods 1

I love to spend time near water. I'm very fortunate that right behind my house there is a beautiful trail by a river. I love to spend time there, walking by the edge of the river or sitting on a rock watching the water flow by. It immediately calms me down and opens me up to the Spirit. Yesterday was Thursday, my sermon writing day, and enticed by the beautiful weather, I decided to take a pad of paper with me into the woods to write my sermon by the river. Here's a picture of my pad with my foot next to it, sporting the hot pink sneakers I got to run the Bishop's 5K - which is tomorrow! OMG - why did I ever think I could run a race?! If I ever needed the river to calm me down, this would be the week.

Anyway, I found myself doing a lot more contemplating than writing. Writing a sermon by hand is a romantic notion I often think I aspire to (after all, my first and most respected mentor wrote all his sermons by hand, claiming that it gave him the neccesary time and room to really think about what he was saying), but the truth is that I really prefer writing on the computer. I learned to write papers with pen and paper, a stack of index cards and a typewriter, but I've been utterly and completely converted to computer writing. I like the creativity of being able to edit things on the screen, move sentences and paragraphs all around and change things as I go.

But taking my pad of paper out into the woods served my deeper purpose well. It slowed me down. In fact, it slowed me down so much that it was at least three hours before I came out of the woods again. I discovered that I had my camera in my pocket and enjoyed taking lots of pictures of my favorite spots, which I think I'll share here over the next few days. My time in the woods centered me as it always does, and made me wonder, as I always do, why I don't spend time there more often. Oh, and I did come up with at least a basic outline for the sermon...

It is a really healing and rejuvinating thing to put something beautiful into your day, as is finding some time for a little solitude. Whenever I take the time to go down this lovely trail, I am blessed with both at once. Isaiah wrote, "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." I couldn't agree more.