While I'm not sure why anyone would want to walk the John Muir Trail in seven days, this nevertheless is a marvelous witness to what it means to immerse oneself in the Creation through silence and solitude (even if racing alone at over 30 miles per day in rugged terrain).
WINTER IS COMING - Seven Days on the John Muir Trail from Ryan Commons on Vimeo.
Continued from the previous post . . . But now I’m learning to see.
It’s taken many miles, many place and faces. It’s taken a rattling and a shaking I thought would undo me. It’s taken a descent into a darkness that I couldn’t know at the time to be a gift of grace—a mercy, though terribly severe. But what I see now—made possible because of all this—I wouldn’t trade for anything.
It’s taken a long time to open my eyes to this Light, to see the Marvel that’s as near as the beating of my heart.
Sometimes I regret that, and wonder why I was so dull. But regret doesn’t get me anywhere. And wishing only keeps me fixated elsewhere. I’m learning to live where I am—here and now, on the ground, in this place, this body.
When I do, I come face to face with the Mystery that is always right before—indeed, within—us all.
Continued from the previous post. . . Some people say we look for love in all the wrong places.
It’s true, our longing can take us into dangerous and destructive places, but there is no place on earth where God is not present, where Love is not as near as our next breath.
In our search for God, our yearning to return to the center, we’re always looking exactly where we can find what we’re looking for. We’re just not trained to see. We have such little schooling in real holiness. We may have heard all about God, our ideas about God may be straight-laced and orthodox, but that doesn’t mean we’d know how to recognize God even if God were standing, in all God’s radiance, right before us.
To be continued . . .
For most of my years, I’ve wandered the Earth in search of God, longing for a real encounter with divine love. I was a spiritual vagabond, always looking somewhere else for God, over the next hill, in the next book, at the next conference, a different technique, experience, or idea—seeking fulfillment and meaning and happiness in achievement, recognition, influence, even possessions.
I figured God was somewhere other than where-I-was because I didn’t find where-I-was to be all that interesting.
I was perpetually restless. And because I was always looking elsewhere, I was blind to what—or Who—was right before me, beneath me, around me . . . indeed, within me.
To be continued . . .