I just feel it necessary to announce that my travel bug (that which got so thoroughly exercised during my january train travels) has been thoroughly used and exhausted, and that I don't intend to go anywhere for a while. I am not going to go anywhere new, I am not itching to see any new sights... now if you know me you know this is unusual... but here it is. No adventures planned. It's time for you to visit me (as a few have already done - yay!) or just send me a postcard from your adventures. I'll be the host for a change, and the appreciative admirer of others' adventurousnesses.
I have a friend who says he "collects experiences" and that's super, and I've done a lot of that too -- I've spent significant time on the road in that pursuit. But the experience I am out to get right now is not an Amtrak or even a bike ride away. It's here. It's that of rooting - grounding - sticking my feet down for a hot second, or maybe even a month. It is so different from the adventuring (and the leaving) I have been so familiar with.
Mary Oliver said: (in a poem available here)
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,”
they say, “and you, too, have come
into the world to do this, to go easy,
to be filled with light, and to shine.”
Right now I want to Stay awhile, like the trees, sinking roots down (roots of repetition and ritual and deep reverence and prayer), not being pulled away to forge new adventures, but connecting. Sometimes barefoot and actually digging my toes in, sometimes just sinking the spiritual toes into God's word (made flesh and humus and book and dust and lemon tree and bread) around me.
No comments:
Post a Comment