Exercise to me is the best way to untangle the knots within. I remember a few years ago, when my boss reamed me out for something that he had just given me the green light to do. He questioned my integrity and work ethic. Nobody calls me lazy, except my wife, and lives to tell about it.
I ran 5 miles that night, as if it were a lazy stroll around the block. The anger and indignation seeped out of my pores. The contempt for his ham-fisted, bi-polar management style pounded into the pavement. When I got home, I felt at peace. The next day I went back to work. He apologized. I did not kill him. We had an accord.
The other day I went hiking up the mountain to a destination unknown. I was by myself, since all my friends crapped out on me, but I was determined to go anyway, demonstrating my incredible resolve and iron will. Or perhaps I was just really bored. Either way, I went. Into the void. Off the beaten path. The road less travelled. Boldly going where no man has gone before. Okay, so it was almost entirely on paved roads, but since you're not here to see them, and I since I selectively shoot pictures, you will never know the difference.
Actually my main purpose in walking up the hill was to clear my mind a little bit.
Katherine, and for that matter, Elizabeth, inherited their stubborn, stiff-necked dispositions straight from me. This is a fact that I have shared with both of them quite often, usually after a brazen display of genetic lineage. We share a conspiratorial chuckle and take sheepish glances at Susan, knowing she bears the brunt of our furies.
Lately we have been struggling with Katherine, desperately trying to bring her to a place of peace within herself. She will get there, on her own terms, in her own time, with her own ways. We simply have to surrender and beg for lenient terms. I think she will be benevolent toward us. Not being sure, however, I have forbid her to read any accounts of biblical kings, who cut off the thumbs of the defeated kings and left them to beg scraps from the table, like so many mongrel dogs. (Read Judges 1, if you dare.)
I trudged up the mountain, backpack in tow, full of whatever I might need for an extended mission, except a flashlight, ensuring a relatively early return. Intentionally taking paths that were totally new to me, I scaled the heights for a good 30 minutes and eventually ended up exactly where I had been many times before. At first I was little disappointed. I really wanted a cool adventure. Then I was reassured. Maybe a little familiarity was exactly what I needed.
I found a convenient tree to lean against, dropped my cushy backpack on the ground and broke open my phone to read The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis. I love his writing style and ability to make incredibly complex things clear and easy to understand, even for a Redneck. The premise is that pain and suffering only make sense in the context of a biblical worldview. Otherwise it is all random, meaningless and fruitless.
Things have to make sense, even when they don't. I have crawled up many paths in my life, seeking to know truth. Every time I think I am on some brand new trail, I end up at the same place. The irony for me is that there is always an easy, paved road to get there, but I always seem to take the path that is full of briars, slippery rocks and unsure ground.
God will make sense of this crazy path we call Spain. Perhaps it was meant to bring out some issues for all of us that would have remained hidden back in the States. At any rate, I know where the trail ends and who will meet me there, with a cold glass of water and a pig pickin'.
"But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’
So the party began." (Luke 15)
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