Lingering Winter

Icicle Outside Church Office

I love the icicle pictured above - it looks like a bird in flight. Yesterday I drove to Sparta, NC for a week of rest and quiet. Katie (my intrepid golden retriever) and I got to the house around 5:30pm after 10 hours on the road. It's not a difficult trip but long. When we got into Virginia from Tennessee it became a snowy landscape. By the time we got to Galax, VA it was obvious they had been hit by the same storm that covered the east coast. I think their snow began in December and they haven't seen the ground since!

I took the Blue Ridge Parkway from Galax to Glade Valley where the house is. There was still a good bit of ice and snow on the road and evidence of lots of fallen trees which someone had cleared. That part of the Parkway is used quite a bit for local traffic. There were deer everywhere! I was so grateful it was still daylight so I could see them. The deer here are gray colored instead of the brown beauties in Indiana. We got into the house to find a foot of snow still remaining on the ground. Katie and I spent the night without heat due to a furnace problem. Wonderful folks from the company I use came out to help and make the diagnosis. We were fine - Katie generates enough heat for a small country! And today everything is fixed and the driveway cleared. I did see a fun sign on a church in Galax - "GOD LOVES YOU SNOW MUCH!" Clever. I drove down to Elkin, NC today for a few things. It's 23 miles and when I started back it was 56 degrees in Elkin and 41 degrees at the house. Amazing what a couple of thousand feet in elevation can do!

The silence here is so wonderful. It is a wonderful place for prayer. I am amazed still at how time seems to stand still in the silence of meditation. I have been working my way towards 30 minutes of meditation each day. Twenty minutes is the most I have been able to do so far. I don't really think about the time but try to let myself end where it feels comfortable - sometimes that is 10 minutes, sometimes more or less. I keep reminding myself that this is not a contest, not a race, it is about being with God, being silent and listening. I do know that when I end my time I feel like the world is bathed in quiet. I want to whisper so as not to disturb. Wonderful!