Bio: Robin and I met in 2004 when I was right out of college. We led a small group for the church college group for a year, and have been friends ever since then. (How could I not like her after she fixed the most delicious pork chop I’ve ever eaten, cooking for our entire small group?) Robin is an architect by training, but I think one of her real gifts is her speech. Robin picks words and uses them carefully, precisely, perfectly. She just has an uncanny ability to say the exact right thing, to turn a phrase in such a way that it pierces with truth, throbs with beauty, shines with wisdom.
Over the time that I’ve known her, Robin has been to Israel, England, Spain and Nicaragua (and other places too?), changed jobs, lost jobs, suffered family tragedies and personal injuries and more family tragedies, and yet she carries on with iron determination and graceful presence. Robin has learned to trust Christ, more truly than just about anyone else I know. She is tall and regal, has wise eyes that see deep and miss little, and a wonderful love of wit and irony.
Eighth Day Challenge: (written with beautiful, clear script due to that architecture training) “Go to Lake Arcadia. Find a secluded spot and sit still and alone for at least 30 minutes in quietness after you have read three Psalms of your choice. I suggest doing this as near sunset as possible.”
Initial Reaction: Cool. So far, the days that require a LOT of traveling around (Days 1 and 7, for example) have been followed by meditative, contemplative challenges, and I appreciate that. This isn’t a challenge that I worry about being able to complete, rather, it is a great, good-for-your-soul challenge. Also, this letter wasn’t signed, so at first I thought it was Steve Burshek who gave me the challenge, which makes sense because the two of us studied Christian meditation a few years ago. But turns out it was Robin, so there goes that thought.
Recap:
Instead of paying the City of Edmond money to go to Lake Arcadia, I went to my work’s (OK Dept. of Wildlife) Arcadia Education Area, which has walk-in access to the lake for free. Tip for anyone who wants to replicate what I did. You drive east on Memorial Road, past I-35, to Midwest Boulevard. Turn north, and drive past 2 fancy neighborhoods. You will come to a locked gate across the road. Leave your car there and walk down the road ¾ of a mile to the lake. This is totally legal until dark most of the year, minus deer season. And that is what I did.
I worried that with all the hot temperatures I would roast, but the temperature was actually very pleasant. I even had jeans on since I wanted to hike a little, but I still felt fine. I got a little warm, but there was a great breeze down by the lake. So I was fine.
So with the glow of sunset highlighting the tops of trees, I walked down the main road from my car. It was good prep time to get my mind calmed down from the stress and busy-ness of the day – just listening to the sounds of nature (breeze in the trees, summer bugs buzzing, faint boat engines). I got to sort out my pent-up frustrations, and focus my heart on my purpose for being there.
The timing of the challenge was great – a few weeks ago, my guys group started a book called Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster. I’ve read it before, but I just think it is a fantastic book. I love how Foster treasures some of the “classic”, ie very old, practices of profound Christian thinkers. One of the 12 disciplines is meditation, and so this challenge from Robin is great timing to get to practice this.
Here are a couple things Foster wrote about meditation in his book. “In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds.” And “Christian meditation goes far beyond the notion of detachment. There is a need for detachment – a Sabbath of contemplation…[But] we must go on to attachment. The detachment from the confusion all around us is in order to have a richer attachment to God.” And “Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God’s voice and obey his word.”
As I walked and got closer to the lake, I thought about which Psalms I would pick. I decided I should read Psalm 23, because it is so well-known and a great summary of how God provides for our needs. The other two I’d figure out when the time came.
With the lake in sight, I hiked through tall grasses and came into a clearing by the water. The sun was hovering just over the horizon and reflecting beautifully off the water. Here’s a picture from my cell phone of the area, and another of me trying to look contemplative.
I circled the clearing, just enjoying the breeze, the sunset, the pleasant sounds of summer. It was very peaceful. Also, now that I think about it, I don’t recall being bothered by any bugs while I was there. Hm. Perhaps a gift from Dad that I got to enjoy a bug-free experience.
I spread an old t-shirt on the ground and sat down next to a stump, where I laid my Bible. And I just let the stillness spread over me. There was a smell too – I’m not sure I can say exactly what scent I smelled, but it just smelled rich. Like cut grass and rain and fresh earth and who knows what else all mixed together. I heard some bird calls and more bug calls. It was great.
I opened up my Bible to Psalm 68, but I’ve read that one a lot, so I went to the next one, Psalm 69. I read it through once, then started reading it line by line, trying to give time for the words to form meaning and sink into my soul.
And then something horrible happened. I started to get sleepy. Very, very sleepy. I would start to fade, then snap back awake and aware, and read a couple more lines, and get very sleepy again. I did that for Psalm 69 and then for the next one, Psalm 99, too. It was so peaceful… and still… and the temperature was a gentle warm…and then God helped me wake up.
I looked over, and under one of the trees, next to the water, I saw something. Some sort of animal, a fairly large animal, no more than 60 feet away from me. I don’t know what it was, it was too far away (thank goodness) to really identify, but it looked basically like a dog but moved like a cat. As in, take a house cat, increase it about 35 percent, give it dark fur, and that’s what I saw. And as I focused in on the animal and it slunk away into the field of grass I had just walked through, a rush of adrenaline shot through me and helped me really wake up. ‘Cause whatever it was, was still nearby.
Now, I acknowledge it could have been just a large housecat that looked big to me from a distance. We get enough reports of cougars and mountain lions and panthers at work that I realize people can greatly misjudge the size and ferocity of housecats. So maybe it wasn’t as threatening as I considered. Still, it helped me wake up. And fully awake, I came to some insight.
It’s really sad that I can’t go outside for 30 minutes and stay alert and awake enough to concentrate on God and his word. I sleep about six hours a night, sometimes less, and eight to nine on the weekends. But I never wake up naturally. Always to an alarm. Always wishing I had more time to rest.
In most of my life, this isn’t a problem. Turn on the radio, open a window, go for a quick walk and I’m fine. I don’t drink those abhorrent 5-hour-energy drinks, I don’t drink soda for the caffeine kick, but I do get snacks from the vending machine, sometimes for no other reason than I am sleepy and need something to rev me up. But out there among the trees and the tall grasses, with the sun slipping below the horizon, I didn’t have my modern defenses. I didn’t have noise, or stimulation, or food. And the exhaustion was too much for me.
Foster, the author I mentioned earlier, nails my lifestyle with this quote “If we are constantly being swept off our feet with frantic activity, we will be unable to be attentive at the moment of inward silence.” Ouch. The sting of truth.
So, with one Psalm still left, I stood up and read Psalm 23 on my feet. It helped. (Plus I thought I would be less vulnerable to unknown animal attack.) With the Psalms done, I walked slowly around the clearing, thinking. I walked over to a nearby boat ramp (which left the open clearing between me and the grasses where the creature might be lurking, so I felt safer about that.)
I spoke my thoughts aloud to God, but mainly just tried to be quiet and listen. Listen for what God might want to speak to me. It was breezier sitting down by the water on the boat ramp, so I did that. I won’t say my mind didn’t veer off into other topics while I was down there, but I mainly was able to sit and think about the Psalms.
I can’t say there was any one moment that I felt a lightening bolt of inspiration, or that I felt that God spoke any one thing emphatically to me. But these are the impressions I walked away from that time with.
His plans are not my plans. And that is OK, and will cause some angst and worry and fretting on my part, but in the end it will be OK.
He delights in my delight. It just occurred to me what an incredible playground He built for his kids with the water and the trees and the nature area I was in. It was full of things to study and things to enjoy, and the temperature was great and the smell was rich and the sounds were peaceful. And so few people get out and enjoy the simply pleasures of the world He made for us to enjoy. He delights in our delight.
The last thing I sensed was as the moon rose in the deepening-blue sky, and it looked just like a big eye, and I felt like God said, “I see you.” And it was both sort of a peek-a-boo moment, and a “you are not forgotten, I see you and I know what is going on” sentiment.
Great challenge Robin. Today was good for me, a good moment for God to remind me of his love for me and his faithfulness.
-BD
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