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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