Companions

Letter 4397

Rarely do I walk with another. Today I have a companion on my journey into and across the valley.

After early talk, we fall into a rhythm of walking and silence. We speak when necessary: rest time. Avoid these rocks.

❖

This neighbor, by whom I live, with whom I walk, knows my ways as well as I know theirs.

Yet we converse in silence. The currency of our bond is the years spent distantly, each working on our respective chores.

Let me speak friendship, finally and after many years. Perhaps this is the last walk.

Consider:

Can I express my love for others today?

Reading:

❖ “The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward.” — Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

❖ “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

❖ “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” — Proverbs 17:17 (KJV)

Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

New Soil

Letter 4396

I stand on new ground. My roots grasp new soil.

My face is turned to a new sun.

My skin feels a new breeze. There is a new scent in the air.

What will become of the old days and ways? A shed skin, left on the ground, forgotten as I trudge brightly into the forest.

❖

Shall I spare a thought for what was, even under the new skies?

O merciful Lord, that you rescued me with all this newness!

Consider:

Can I feel the new all around me?

Reading:

❖ “The world is charged with the grandeur of God… There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” — Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”

❖ “Let nothing disturb thee, nothing affright thee; all things are passing; God never changeth. Patient endurance attaineth to all things.” — Teresa of Ávila, Nada te turbe

❖ “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Yield to Water

Letter 4395

Plans drawn. Stakes driven where my new walls would rise.

The creek. Small and stubborn, flowing through the land on its own course.

My walls will need to rise elsewhere. My home will need to turn.

My path will go another way.

❖

Such a small thing, this trickle of water, to create such a large shift.

Let me be a trickle of water, Lord.

Consider:

Can I learn to accept the flows of the world?

Reading:

❖ “The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It flows to low places loathed by all men. Therefore it is like the Tao.” — Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

❖ “The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.” — Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

❖ “He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” — Psalm 23:2-3 (KJV)

Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

The Broken Bridge

Letter 4394

My neighbors knew it was me walking in their field, for I had told them of my plans to journey through on a free day.

I came upon a broken bridge. I easily forded the creek. Yet I worried: would they think I had made the damage?

The rest of my walk, I planned all the ways I would tell them it was not me.

I had not stopped to repair. I had not turned back to tell them.

❖

Lord, let me accept the tasks you set today, even those unplanned and seemingly not mine.

Consider:

Can I stop for the work I did not plan?

Reading:

❖ “Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty. Thy second duty will already have become clearer.” — Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus

❖ “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” — Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

❖ “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” — Galatians 6:2 (KJV)

Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.