A few years ago, while on a retreat near the California coast and close to where my oldest daughter now lives and surrounded by the redwoods, I got up early in the morning before everyone else and walked into the quiet hills behind the cabin. Even though I was following a narrow dirt track made by a vehicle, the area was remote enough for me to know that I was alone and that these woods were rarely disturbed by people.
The woods were old. There was life and decay on all sides, all made by very, very slow changes. Water dripped from leaves and seeped into the soil and collected into threads that slipped over the rocks that became rivulets that--day in and day out--carried the soil from one home to the next or were drawn up into the heights of the redwoods towering over my head. And I thought about how it never stops and how it changes the landscape so slowly that we can hardly perceive it.
The woods were very, very quiet. A bird, the same color as the dark leaves around me and small enough to fit into the palm of my hand, flew into the bushes beside me and proceeded to follow me as I walked. It flew from branch to branch spying on me with his tiny black eyes and then he was gone. And it struck me that, there in the woods where it was possible that no other human being would ever see him, he was doing exactly what God made him to do. He was living. He had no agenda--just breathe in and out, fly and see and eat and be.
It seems like so much of the time I am caught up in getting things done. What would happen if I stopped all my doing and lived like the bird? What if what God really wants from me is that I just really live--breathe in and out, eat and sleep, think and enjoy, be curious, fly, and walk and see?
I know that to really live is the struggle because everyday life demands that certain things be done. But I want my capacity to live to grow so that, in spite of life's demands, it eventually takes over like the trees that sprout and grow and eventually tower over the forest floor.
And when I am too old to do any more, I want to be the most alive I've ever been.
The woods were old. There was life and decay on all sides, all made by very, very slow changes. Water dripped from leaves and seeped into the soil and collected into threads that slipped over the rocks that became rivulets that--day in and day out--carried the soil from one home to the next or were drawn up into the heights of the redwoods towering over my head. And I thought about how it never stops and how it changes the landscape so slowly that we can hardly perceive it.
The woods were very, very quiet. A bird, the same color as the dark leaves around me and small enough to fit into the palm of my hand, flew into the bushes beside me and proceeded to follow me as I walked. It flew from branch to branch spying on me with his tiny black eyes and then he was gone. And it struck me that, there in the woods where it was possible that no other human being would ever see him, he was doing exactly what God made him to do. He was living. He had no agenda--just breathe in and out, fly and see and eat and be.
It seems like so much of the time I am caught up in getting things done. What would happen if I stopped all my doing and lived like the bird? What if what God really wants from me is that I just really live--breathe in and out, eat and sleep, think and enjoy, be curious, fly, and walk and see?
I know that to really live is the struggle because everyday life demands that certain things be done. But I want my capacity to live to grow so that, in spite of life's demands, it eventually takes over like the trees that sprout and grow and eventually tower over the forest floor.
And when I am too old to do any more, I want to be the most alive I've ever been.
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