If not in body, then in spirit.

Soul Journey

“’I like the ocean,’ my friend said. ‘I need to see it. It’s nature’s way of reminding us of eternity.’”

Melody Beattie (Journey to the Heart, p.201)

          Every now and then, I crave the ocean. Do you? It pushes within me like a migratory urge that cannot be denied. And, I feel the same from time to time about the North Carolina mountains. I just need to see them. The mountain-craving I understand. They are the earth from which I sprang, and like a salmon jumping white-water rapids to its spawning ground, I must journey home.

          The ocean and the desert are somewhat alike to me—alien enough to be interesting and arresting. Their vastness and wind-driven rhythms are hypnotic, meditative, like entering an empty cathedral of awesome proportions. Sometimes we need vastness to remind us of our smallness.

          Everyday fills with details, some large, some small. We wake in the morning with an agenda running through our heads, listing what comes first and then next. How can I get everything accomplished in one trip? What absolutely must be done today, and what can be delayed? We sprint through the minutia of the hours that create our “small-picture” day. We sometimes become a bit rodent-like—running through the same maze knowing each turn and twist like the back of our hand. Repetitive, robotic, dull.

That’s when we need to refresh at the ocean’s edge or tuck ourselves into the great fold of the mountains or be stirred to silence by a desert wind—so that we can appreciate the “big-picture.” We touch eternity and that touch recalibrates all our systems. Renewed, we begin again. When we can’t go there in person, we can go there in spirit. Close your eyes and embark on a soul journey.

                                        In the Spirit,

                                        Jane