The Unclad Soul

The poet, Tyler Kent White has written, “I promise if you keep searching for everything beautiful in this world You will eventually become it.” It is a promise I cling to. When I lived in Hamilton, Texas, a small town in the central part of the state, I often took to the countryside. When small-town life got to me—yes, there are political divides and social conflicts and elitism there, too--; when the strain of ministry seemed overwhelming to me because of unexpected deaths and divorces and fixed old beliefs and my own inner questions; I would hit the walking trail East of town. Or, I would drive through groves of trees along dirt roads out North across rickety bridges and the sight of grazing cattle on the other side. I would bird hunt with friends and fish in the tanks on their property. I never killed anything I didn’t eat. But it wasn’t the hunting and the fishing that refreshed me, though I did enjoy it. It was simply being in the country, in natu...

One of the ancient mystics wrote, “Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” I need that journey. It is time, in this tumult of meanness, to absorb the beauty of autumn. I must leave the hollow vulgarity of politics and get lost in the trees with their tumbling treasures of color. Across this vast country, through open grasslands and the upland passes, over deeply textured mountains and along stone path streams, there lies before us nature’s unbiased beauty. There is something spiritual about nature, something wise and instructive. Yes, it has its turbulent side, which is simply a part of the mystery of the universe. But even with its blasts of snow and desert heat, even with the ferocity of hurricanes and the damaging winds of tornados, the pounding of hail and lightning’s deadly strikes, the earth is still filled with a luminous glow that stirs our deepest longings and leaves us motionless, breathless, awed. There are experiences waiting for us far...

"I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart." ~ Mary Oliver, Poet/Essayist

“It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.”  ~ Henry David Thoreau