Russellings of the Spirit

OUCH!

First of all, sorry for the somewhat gross photo here. Both for the bruised toe as well as the dramatic proof that I need some SERIOUS foot moisturizing. But hopefully as you will see later, this disgusting picture is integral to today’s post.

So… I stubbed my toe the other day. I mean, REALLY stubbed it.

Joan and I were walking through the woods with the dogs when it happened. It was a beautiful, clear, warm, fall day, so we decided to take a route that led us along a wooded path that led to a creek. The dogs really love to go wading in the water, so we tend to indulge them.

As we walked along the trail, I NAILED a tree root that was hidden under the leaves. Hit it SQUARE with the big toe of my left foot, in full stride.

I almost went down, flat on my face. Fortunately, though, I managed to stumble a bit and then eventually recover.

But my toe was THROBBING with pain. When we got home, Joan looked at it, assured me it wasn’t broken, and then gave me the ice pack to wrap around it. In case I haven’t said this before, she is an absolutely WONDERFUL nurse. 

Over the next three or four days, I noticed two things going on simultaneously in my life. First, I noticed that I was not taking our dog Patrick for his morning walks around the neighborhood. I tried it once, but turned around, wincing in pain, after going about a half of a block.

The second thing I noticed was the advent of a serious state of spiritual torpor. My prayer life suddenly seemed to turn arid and dry. My brain ceased spewing out new ideas for future blog posts. My periods of meditation on the wonders of the world and the ridiculous extravagance of my blessings blew away like so much dandelion fuzz. 

“What’s the deal?” I asked. “Why have I fallen into this apparent spiritual and creative dust bowl? Has the well just run dry? Has God finally tired of my naïve and incoherent mutterings and hung out the cosmic ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign in sheer annoyance?”

“I mean, SERIOUSLY! What’s going on!!” I shouted into the night sky.

As expected, the night absorbed my cry and sent back nothing.

After a few days of this unrequited questioning and knocking, it finally dawned on me: the morning walk with Patrick was the time when I did all of my praying and meditation for the day. Every iota of my daily silent transcendentalism seems to have been concentrated into that 30-minute trip around the neighborhood. Of course, in between stops for Patrick to pee, bunny sightings, and chats with friendly neighbors.

And so, if that were indeed the case, it was no wonder that I “hit the wall,” so to speak. No Patrick walking = no time for prayer and/or meditation.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

I mean, what a sad state of affairs is it to see yourself confining this life-giving, life-sustaining practice to ONEsituation and ONE environment! As if it is completely impossible to pause and utter a quick breath-prayer while waiting at a red light… or to close your eyes and talk to God while the internet takes its own sweet time to connect… or to dare to carve out a few minutes of renewing silence instead of just rushing quickly on to the next thing.

As Luke 5:16 tells us, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” In fact, by my count, there are 26 different instances in the Gospels where we are told about Jesus breaking out of the hurly-burly of his world-saving mission and just taking time to pray.

Pretty amazing, eh? Just goes to show you that when something MATTERS enough to you, you will make time for it.

And I will bet you dollars to donuts that on at least ONE of those occasions, he did so with a bruised toe.

Abundant blessings;