In church this morning, our intern minister, Miranda Lennox, told us about one of their spiritual practices. They stand in front of their bookshelves and with a soft focus, allow their eyes to glance over all the books. They have in mind that they are looking for something inspiring, important, relevant. Their eyes land on one book which they take from the shelf and hold in their hand. They open the book and finger lightly through the pages until they are moved to stop on a certain page. They read the first paragraph on that page. Then they sit down and reflect on it.
So, I decided to try this technique. I went to my bookshelf and found myself drawn to an old book that I bet might be on your shelf too! Chop Wood, Carry Water, published in 1984. I let the book fall open (and some of the pages are coming loose!). It landed on page 111 with a quote from Henry David Thoreau;
"Many ... go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."
I will let you ponder the meaning... what is it that YOU are after?
It occurs to me that you might do this with your own old journals as well.
I so enjoyed this post and can relate to having a camera to capture an instantaneous moment, keeping ones' senses totally engaged.
When traveling with my family, we would "take pictures with our eyes." Today, when we are all together, we can easily recall the Elk, on a hill, silhouetted against a waning vermillion/fuschia/orange/eggplant sunset in the Big Sky country OR the green flash over the Pacific sunset on the last Christmas Eve of the twentieth century. I still do that, regularly, as a weekly practice, for sure.
With kids, It's fun to take a toilet paper roll ~ through which to peer ~and take in the photo-moment...describe it with words...then through the written word...then through an artistic expression. Th…