I went to the woods...

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Walden or Life in the Woods

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
We all need to be in the woods. There's something about the lightness of living there: no TV, no radio, no internet - just the smell of fir and cedar, the sight of meteors, the taste of coffee, and the sounds of silence. Everyone needs a context outside of the ordinary because it's there that our senses become attuned to things we don't see in the normal contexts of life. It's there that we can listen to God in ways we can't when daily obligations intrude. It's there that we can talk to God, pouring our heart out and giving voice, perhaps, to that which we didn't even know was there.

I think that's why Jesus was hard to find on so many mornings when the disciples went looking for Him. May we also be found, "in a quiet place" on some regular basis.

cheers.