It’s been a year since Suzy and I arrived in Charlotte — our new home. Notice I didn’t say where we live, but said the word “home.” Yesterday, Suzy took me on a hike in the South Mountains of North Carolina. (One piece of advice when the guide book says last quarter of a mile of hike to waterfall is rugged and difficult – take their word for it.) It was a Autumn day and on both the ride up and back the landscape was gorgeous. On the way home the sun was sinking into fields stretching out like an ocean. I was awash in mystery.
Wendell Berry speaks to this mystery. He writes that when he wakes at night, with increasing despair about the world, he goes outside to “lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of the wild things” who do not worry about the future. Lying beneath the stars, “for a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Jesus when he spoke of the birds and the “lilies of the field” may have had in mind these images when he spoke his truth. Last weekend, reinforced our decision to change. From picking up acorns in my park — only a block away — with our granddaughters, to venturing into the sanctuary of wild things, I soaked myself in the beauty, bounty, and the blessing of life – simply putting aside anxiety and being thankful.
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