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A meditation:

“All the lovely qualities of peace are to be found within your own being, for there is My throne and there do I dwell, every ready to take you out of the confusion into a place of quiet and loveliness. As you approach Me in this Holy place, all discord falls away, and you may be at the will high in the mountains with the scent of pine carried on the soft mountain breezes as they kiss your cheek. Or again, you may be with Me by the ocean.... Why live in outer tumult…? Be still! Pictured in your mind the sitting you wish of our meeting and so surely shall I be able to make my presence felt that when you again take up the duties of the day, you shall be refreshed of body and renewed of soul.” —Eva Bell Werber, In His Presence, 1946

Snowshoeing around deserted 19th century granite quarries one crisp bright white winter afternoon with two of my children, come from their own busy lives. Both have new-style lightweight snowshoes—all aluminum and webbing with crampons for extra grip. I use my dad’s snowshoes—varnished bent wood and rawhide. As wonderful as traditional snowshoes are, when you’re traipsing about with five-foot long contrivances attached to your feet, you need to keep your mind on your business and, well, to be honest...I tend to daydream a bit and I’m not very graceful either. The kids, with their crampons, wait at the top of steeper slopes while of necessity I make my way more slowly, leaving a herringbone design behind. Half way up one of these stretches a most interesting knot in a tree catches my attention, the toe of one snowshoe catches in the back of the other—and it’s head over keister into the snow. Face down, snowshoes sticking up at odd angles the kids take a couple of snapshots to record my predicament for their bother and posterity, and wait chatting on the edge of the quarry, leaving me to my own devices to disentangle myself. I twist and turn, get the snowshoes off only to find myself standing in waist deep snow to put them on again—all in all an awkward operation.

My kids, in sight but out of hearing. A cardinal’s “wheet, wheet, wheet” interrupts the woods’ muffled silence. Quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, amidst the pulling and twisting with snow down my jacket and in my boots, my fingers numb from working leather straps I’m overwhelmed with the Presence, that gentle whisper—that ever-present murmur. I’m at the throne—God awaits, grace abides. —cdw

Weekly devotional and prayer requests for February 3-9, 2012

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