A few days ago, as I was trying to practice prayer without ceasing, I realized (as I often do) that my mind was following two lines of thought - one of the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me) and one of my own scattered thoughts of little consequence. I then remembered Nouwen's Spiritual Advisor's advice to "be interested in... the varieties of trees." I started studying the different types of bark on the trees around me while also saying the Jesus Prayer, and it went well. I hope to eventually learn the names of the different types of trees that belong to all those interesting types of bark since I don't know many of them. I just need to be careful to not make a project out of it!
Yesterday, we came across three instances of trail magic. If you're not aware of what trail magic is, it's when nice people come out to the trail (usually where it crosses a road) and give out free food and drinks to hikers! It's a great thing. Our first experience with trail magic was in Georgia, at Indian Grave Gap, and it was amazing! Fresh fruit, veggies, almost any drink you could think of, boxes of candy bars, and fresh grilled hamburgers, chicken, or veggy burgers! They really spoiled us, and raised our expectations a little too high. The trail magic we happened upon yesterday consisted of a bear box full of empty pop bottles and wrappers. The second was a guy in a jeep offering water and crackers. The third was a cardboard box with sodas in it. The guy in the jeep (Polar Bear) was very friendly, and the snacks and water were great, but he also gave me something else - a fear of snakes! I know there are a lot of snakes in the area, but we've only seen two so far. After talking to Polar Bear, I figured out that the second one we saw was a diamondback! Yeash... not a fan of poisonous snakes. The rest of our hike that day my nerves were on edge. I jumped at every rustling leaf and skirted past piles of rocks filled with fear. Thankfully, most of that fear has dissipated. I would must rather have someone warn me about bears! Those giant, cute, cuddly, racoons! haha haven't seen any of those yet... well, I've got to get off now; rummers of tornadoes in the area!
From my repost about this post:
ReplyDeleteStrange life...we're only a couple of hours from Christine and Adam but can't go see them. We're headed for Cincinnati where Bob will be speaking at a conference.
The wild lilac "trees" are blossoming in the mountains.
And Christine has another post at christinestrailnotes.blogspot.com. It's fun to know that some of you are following their posts.
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Comments:
Shirley Wicker Wright Why can't u see them?
April 28 at 7:01pm ·
Heidi Joubert Have a great time. It's more Springtime where you are than here, that's for sure.
April 28 at 7:03pm ·
Beth Delaney Shirley, if we went in their direction there is no good route from there to get us where we need to be. These mountains limit the good roads that can go in. Thankfully we saw them a week ago...
April 28 at 11:06pm ·