Am just standing out the gate of the house, not yet walking. I don’t know, things just sweep into my brain and get me into thinking mode just like that. I can’t put it aside, nope, because it won’t let me until I get it all sorted out clear through.
For instance, I look down at my walking shoes and I see just how good it is to have one as perfect as this. It hugs my ankle firm and its thick undersole lets me go over gravel and stones with ease. I’d like to think that a person should arm himself with that kind of attitude – firm and thick. Oh yes, firm in his values or goals with thick or solid principles which certainly will help him walk through life’s challenges with no or minimal difficulty.
I look up and see the road I will be walking on stretching out before me. At this starting point of my one-hour-walk, the road I see is quite smooth wide and paved. As I go farther down it, the road changes its terrain. Cracked and uneven in some parts, blotched with pebbles, stones, and rocks in another, and strewn with nature’s mess --- bird droppings, dogs’ shit, fallen leaves and fruits rotting on the ground. I must look like a funny sight skipping over the shit or zigzagging my way through, over, or around the mess. Doesn’t that remind you so much of life – this life journey we each embark on? Sometimes we get it fun and pleasurable; at times it becomes so disjointed and utterly aggravating with odd situations; and then in some again it gives us the darn annoying and maddening circumstances which try our patience and test our resolve. We get it all, don’t we, in this uneven terrain we travel on. But when faced with such challenges, I fall back on the famous words of Michael Jordan ---
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
There’s so much I can see in that walk, so much like life itself. But uncannily when I get to the end of my hike and am back home where I started, I get this feeling that nothing has ended but simply stands on temporary ‘freeze’ -- poised to resume again. And that’s what happens on my next walk. The walk comes to life again with fresh observations, insights, perceptions, and learning. It’s never the same experience every time. Always something new unfolds itself before my eyes.
Isn’t life like that? Nothing is ever ended with finality -- it just goes on or is being arranged in chapters, like a book wherein several chapters are opened and closed but it doesn’t finish the whole book until its very end.
When I feel so low and blue, I get on with that walk not letting anything stop me. Nothing works so well to lift me from the blues, rearrange or straighten my muddled-up thoughts, or get my unsteady feelings lined up positively. It’s like feeling the fresh wind on your face –cool and refreshing feeling like new again. Feels so good! Nature undeniably is unbeatable in the wonder and beauty it weaves into our lives …
--a low-lying bush with lavender blossoms
--a tall tree swaying in the wind and a nest nestled in its branches
--a tree laden with yellow leaves you’d think were flowers
--a bird picking up a tiny twig on the ground and flies up away with it perhaps building a nest somewhere in those trees
--a wisp of smoke from burning leaves filling up the morning air
--a group of birds flitting from tree to tree chirping merrily
--a new plant small and fragile easing its way out of the ground
--a shift in cloud formations and shapes with the backdrop of the bluest sky you’ve ever seen
--a lush vine crawling up a high stone wall lending it color and interest fit for a poster card picture
--a play of light and shadow in the lush trees as the yellow sun peeps out from behind the mountain just beyond the ridge
…and so much more!
In each of these, we are reconnected with what truly matters in the core of our being --- our God-connection.
Okay, am quite sorted out with all that I think --- Time now to get on with my early morning walk. J :-) You bet, there will be more, new ones and so much more!
posted on Monday, May 14, 2007 7:36 PM
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