If you would

Two weeks ago I woke up and just started walking. A friend and I used to do that on Saturday mornings; sometimes we would walk the river, usually we would make a Tesco (that is, grocery) run; and on unique days we would venture to the adjacent town of Coton.


I took this picture on my walk that day. It was cold, but not yet chilly. The skies had just started to cloud over, shading the sun. I remember walking out toward the fields and being relieved of everything that had been weighing on me - applications, research, thoughts from the summer, worries about the future. Everything, all of it, dissipating into that wide open space. To feel happy and connected.

A coursemate and good friend recently took some weekend trips with her partner to the Norfolk coast. 'Take the train to Kings Lynn, change onto a bus, and then stop at any point along the beach'.

Lately, with everything that's been going on, I've been craving the ocean. I remember my first time standing on the English coast - it was Brighton so it was busy, but the ocean was breathtaking. It was the first time I understood what meant to feel the 'pull' of the ocean. And I feel it now. Seven or eight miles of Norfolk coast. Miles of this stretch of land touching water. Eight miles disappearing into the horizon and engulfing you with it. 'Almost' is too weak a word; the desire is visceral.

I haven't been entirely successful in the juggling act of life lately. In fact, I've been everything but. I feel like my mind has been carrying so much for the past few weeks; and it's put a lot of things on hold while I've been trying to get the most immediate things done. But in the doing sometimes you miss out on the being, on the essence of things. Such an observation is entirely commonplace, but perhaps in being so it is also all the more forgotten. Or, perhaps it is just difficult to implement.

I feel like I've entered another 'season' of life, and I'm not sure what to make of it yet. It's marked by solitude but peace, and I know that I should take that as a good thing. God is good. He really is. And whatever He is doing, I pray that I can be quiet enough, connected enough, humble enough, to understand -

Even if my mind doesn't understand, even if I can't conceive, then I pray that my heart will.

Posted on October 26, 2007 at 04:38PM