into the woods…

Manna Meditations, Day 1

I walk into the woods, looking for the Maker.

It has been a long time.

Today the path is tiger-striped with hard gold light, the long shadows of trees falling in bars over the ridge. The air is so cold you can feel it taking up space in your lungs, feel the ice of it in your nose when you breathe.

I am listening for the voice of the Maker, and I am looking for Beauty.

Beauty: this is my daily bread. And lately, I’m believing that in this season, the bread is more like manna… Manna, a mystery of a gift, dropped in the wilderness where I might find it.

So I follow the trail of breadcrumbs up the ridge line, winding my way up staircases of rock, ladders of fallen limbs. I walk slow, stopping every twenty yards or so to bend low and look … to photograph the trembling skeleton of a fallen leaf, or white veins tracing through old boulders. The light is so hard and so solid that it catches in everything, outlining every pebble and snatch of pinestraw, throwing every fallen feather into bas-relief…

Manna…

And I am thinking…

There was a time (hear me) when I fancied myself a creator. A maker of beauty. A crafter of lovely words, lovely lines. And maybe I *was* that… maybe one day I’ll be that again.

But for now, in this season, I am here in the woods, wanting to make … nothing.

I am here not to make, but to find.

I am a wandering pilgrim, finding the promised land right here, in this wilderness of small things. I don’t call myself Planter, or Reaper … I’m Forager. Finder. Collector of breadcrumbs, of broken bits of beauty.

And this is its own kind of feast – believe me.

And so, for the next 40 days – six days a week, with a sabbath rest for good measure – you’ll find me here, in quiet meditation on my daily Manna. I’ll share small bits of loveliness I never made, but merely discovered along the path.

Wherever I’m going, I know there is goodness here… Maybe you’ll come, too.