My bootcamp class ran through Discovery Park at 5:30 this morning. Whenever my trainer says we're doing something "new" or "fun," I know I'm in for it. This time she meant we weren't going to run the relatively "flat" loop as usual, but instead run all the way down to the beach. (Chris says that whenever we roll our eyes and groan, she knows she's hit a nerve ). Running to the beach, meant, of course, fun calisthenics in the sand and on logs and stuff. And when you run down to the beach at Discovery Park, you have to run back up. Running up, thankfully, can take on the appearance of walking up the endless stairs, pumping, pumping, pumping my arms, and then running on the flats. But only when my trainer is watching.
My good friend Robbie inspired me months ago to spend intentional time this summer reading my Bible. He'd recently quit his job and as he says it, took on the "part-time job of studying the Bible" everyday in a cafe. I was jealous of that consecrated time he had, and what better opportunity to dive back into the Word than on my own European pilgrimage this summer? I realized the other night, that while I haven't actually left yet, I'm never going to get into the Word for that prescribed hour if I don't actually start. So I did. Yesterday.
I read Psalm 63:1-4 just now:
"O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name."
I was in the sanctuary this morning. As I arrived on the beach at the park, huffing and puffing, all of Puget Sound lay in front of me, in all of God's glory. The wind whipped at me in gusts. The clouds parted over bits of the Olympic mountains to reveal the snow-capped peaks in stark clarity. The sky was like a temperamental teenager: clouds shifting and moving, part sunny to the north, with tankers lit up in the morning light, and dark and brooding to the south.
I'm embarking on an epic pilgrimage in two days. I'll see old friends and make new ones. I'll see new parts of the world, hear some great music, fall asleep on cross-country train rides. I may very well shovel lots of cow manure again on the farm where I'll be working and hopefully defend myself with courage against barnyard chickens--as opposed to four years ago on an Austrian farm. But God also reminds me that He's indeed in the details. Just like He spoke to me at 6:08 this morning in fine detail on the edges of Puget Sound, He'll speak to me in different lands, too.
I love this poem written by Mary Oliver (and I read it wistfully, knowing it's one of the many books I won't be taking along this summer:
"This World"
I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open
and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is the dark pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we're not too hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too, and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones, so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being locked up in gold.
