Shade Tree Wisdom 11/3/10

Cooler, and sort of drizzly this morning so I skipped the walk.
Maybe the good report from the doctor emboldened me to this, or maybe it is just that I no longer really enjoy walking in the rain as I did when a youth.
Whatever, I skipped, and I am not sorry.

Another morning came to mind. We were visiting family and drove along when Mom went to pick up her son after high school band practice. So we drove to the school, and the members checked in their instruments and came out of the building to get their rides.

We waited, and waited and then waited some more, and finally he appeared. His Mom asked, “What kept you?” His reply – and this is interesting – he said, “Oh I was just lingering”.

Lingering. When was the last time you heard that? It means not wanting to leave, it means sort of hanging around, reluctant to leave the moment, to break away. It means to savor this moment in time for a little while longer.

Remember the last family reunion you attended. Maybe at a park somewhere, or a private place, and you met long unseen cousins and talked with favorite aunts and uncles and laughed about some of the things you did when you were kids together back at home? It was a time for lingering, and the sun was going down and twilight sort of crept over the scene and someone lighted a fire in the pit and laid out some marshmallows. The talk was of nothing much, but it was a time you just did not want to leave.

I thought of that today when life is so rushed, and we have many things to do and we can’t seem to find the time to linger any more. Here comes our God, and says to us, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Does not that leave us with a sense of calm and peace?

The Psalm says to us, “Delight yourself in the Lord,
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” Psalm 37, 4.7.

I suggest to you that this urges us to do a little lingering now and then to sort of let our souls catch up with our burdened and hurrying body.

GPD 11/3/10