on wandering, as a form of meditation...

Slowly wandering each day through another small area of les Cantons-de-l'Este (the Eastern Townships of Quebec to the East of Montreal) is good for my soul. The weather has been spectacular - mid 70sF - with periodic cloud bursts late in the evening. Our current domicile for the next week sits atop a small mountain surrounded by trees, wildflowers, and golden rod where it is drop dead silent, thanks be to God, and oh so restorative. Yesterday we hunted down some fresh corn and also scored the best tasting cherry tomatoes I've eaten in years.

Each day offers a chance for writing and reflection, guitar practice, naps, and wandering. A former colleague in Tucson told us the French have a word for this: flâneur. Apparently, the poet Charles Baudelaire popularized it as he strolled about the city without any apparent goals or destinations. This is clearly how we treat our time away. The ancient Celtic monks took this one step deeper in their approach to pilgrimage: they, too, would wander without a clear destination until they found a locale that touched their heart with the spirit of resurrection - and then they would rest, listen, and wait.

Last night and this morning, I came across these words during my very slow reading of a few selected insights by Fr. Teilhard de Chardin that evoked a resurrection feeling in my heart:

No longer simply a religion of individuals and of heaven, but a religion of humankind and the earth: that is what we are looking for at this moment - the oxygen without which we cannot breathe.  

I am going to sit and later walk around with this in my head and heart today. It strikes me as in invitation to consciously and carefully connect my faith with acts of compassion that nurture myself and others rather than diminish any of us, yes? More an inclusive spirituality of welcome, radical hospitality, and possibilities instead of the shame, judgement, and locked doors of the past. St. Mary Oliver of Provincetown put it like this:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.