Green surrounds me above, below, and on the sides. I feel a soft breeze caress my bare legs and arms as the yellows and blues become grays. Is it the Holy Spirit on a journey or just the wind carrying the present into the future? A rustling in the dense woods to my right causes me to pause; listening intently, and my silly theories catch a ride on a gust of air. An exquisite bright red bird, with a black goatee and tail flutters to a branch just above me before flitting away to the nearby pine, and I lose him in the beginning shades of night. A hollow repetitive tapping against bark demands attention. A lone howl echoes from the distance. Dirt and sweat drift up from my tee shirt lingering around me, and exhaustion slowly lulls me back to the sweet back and forth under me. I close my eyes and as my mind happily empties I am transported from worries and to-do lists to nowhere, an empty place, a place that can be filled.
My hands are shaking and the cold wet grass shocks my senses as my shoeless feet traverse a path I can walk in pitch black. Each drop of rain is a pleasure, an awakening to real time. Time in the moment without distractions like TV, bills, or infuriating people. Positioning half of my Berber and fleece blanket over the gaping holes of rope, I jump in and pull the other half over my chilled body flowing into the side to side motion started with my presence. Breathing in my own air underneath my makeshift bivy, I feel the increased pressure and speed of each plop, plop, plop from the torrent blasting me from the top of my wet head to my toes. Rain and dog odor mix filtering through the blanket, running down my face, and I am glad to feel something else. Minutes pass and finally the downpour and tension both begin subside. Slowly dissipating into an awareness of sounds; crickets singing their tender melody, frogs bellowing “listen to me,” owls asking “Whoo?” and down the ridge a distant Ahaaa! Ahaaa! of a bobcat screaming. Anger dissolves completely into heaving sobs as my friend rocks me back and forth.
I dare not move. Brown hair tickles my chin and I fear the lopsided position I find myself in will erupt in a split second to me being splayed in a heap on the hard ground. Suddenly a giggle breaks the silence and force of movement from a tricky child sends us both into fits of laughter mingled with screams of fear. We struggle to re-center ourselves as the child deviously scrambles up the side grabbing the metal circle that attaches rope to tree while my shoulder painfully meets the dirt and small rocks below. I involuntarily abuse our aging boxer snoozing beneath before she can flee. A contented sigh escapes me as the swaying motion of my hammock taunts me from overhead and a mischievous face peers through the rope, smiling. Again, a moment lived. A lesson learned. Sometimes hurt is all we feel. Sometimes we only feel the love. We have to choose.
No place can encompass so much. Life in all forms, dances in the gentle air; my breath, parachuting puffy white dandelion seeds, sunbeams, and the Holy Spirit, ever present. From my sanctuary I cry out sometimes with words, sometimes without; “Come to me! Teach me! Speak to me! Love me. Lead me into the future. Thank you…” Sounds echo from far and near; chirping, cawing, swishing, tapping, snoring, giggling, howling and chimes. Birds, deer, squirrels, old dogs, precious children, wind, rain, and empty thoughts fill the silence and create soothing memories of nowhere to revisit in the future but make bearable, chaotic and stressful moments, in the here and now.
Where is your sanctuary where you spend time with God the Father and Holy Spirit?
2 Corinthians 3:17: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Barbara Lavalley
To leave a comment for the author, go to http://jmadvent.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment