Good Morning, Digital Neighbors! Happy Friday ADD Irregulars, WSN Aficionados & Curators, Curmudgeons & Curmudgeonettas @ Padre’s. Good morning to all our Friends, Refugees, Early Birds, Later Dayers, Conversants and Lurkers over at the Report. Peaking behind the circus curtain to check in on the PHAM and all its Misfits over at Phetasy and finally returning to the Unhypnotized that sip with Scott.

I have been blessed with rural assignments since 2012 and my return to countryside has been a real and palpable blessing in my life and ministry. While I loved the city and all its hustle, bustle and immediacy that shaped the first 19 years of my priesthood, returning to a more rural setting help me rediscover the healing and wonderous power of nature. There is still plenty of technology and modernity in my life, too much to be honest, but seeing wildlife, smelling pastures, hearing the rooster at daybreak and the creepy crawlies at dusk is something often missed in suburbia. Not always, but often.

Having roads with less traffic and a slower speed limit, loading up the dog so she can stick her head out the window and suck in all the smells is a unique type of joy. Stopping to gaze at a field full of deer or look at the movements of creek are all part of the awaiting joys of the countryside. Nature is both healing and strengthening and I am only a peripheral visitor to nature, someone on the fringe of its wonders. I hope wherever life finds you, there is some contact with nature, some brush with reality beyond our control or dependent upon our efforts. Nature offers us no political parties, no social norms or constraints, no expectations other than to be seen and experienced with awareness. The more you bring to the table, the more nature provides, the less you bring to the table, the more you miss. It is good to discover and walk from time to time the path of no intent.

Your thought for today provided by C. David Hay who inspired this morning ramble. Have a great day digital neighbor!

COUNTRY LANE
Give me a road away from the crowd,
Away from the noise and the race
And let me wander the quiet trail
To a different time and place.

Where miles are measured in valleys,
And birches point the way
To somewhere we miss so dearly–
We call it yesterday.

All cares are soon forgotten
On the path of no intent;
The beauty of the countryside
Is surely heaven sent.

And when this journey’s over
The memories shall remain
Of daydream trips into the past
And down a country lane.

C. DAVID HAY

Mingo Wilderness in Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri. Photography by Robert Charity