Returning to Nature

Going is the Hardest Part

We had so much packed up against this trip. We spent every evening fixing up the house so that we would be able to sell it. Then, after we sold it, we spent every evening packing things up and moving. But just because that part of our life was rapidly changing, it did not mean we could slack off on other responsibilities.

More than the logistics of getting things done against the realities of a very limited 24 hours a day, there has been a much larger emotional toll. We were leaving the place we truly call home. We are leaving a family of people who love us and whom we love. We are leaving a church that is where our boys spent so many waking hours. We are leaving walks to the coffee shop and rides down the bike path. And we are venturing into something very unknown.

With all the emotions and the tiredness that comes from trying to do a whole lot of different things well, going on a long car trip out to the Rockies was not something I was very excited about.

But every mile closer to the mountains, the more I grew excited. The plains of Kansas became more hilly. Rocks began to pierce the grassland. Eventually, in the distance, some funny looking clouds revealed themselves to be the snow capped peaks of the mountains.

Once I am in the mountains life becomes easy and I realize that choosing to get away is the hardest part.

Nature Gifts Perspective

I don’t know about you, but I am fully invested in the life I am living. Growing in my faith takes daily consistency. Working out has to happen at some point every day. I take my job seriously. And I take time with the family seriously.

I leave room for spontaneity, but to leave on a trip calls for an abandonment for much of the routine I thoroughly enjoy.

But if I were to not go on this trip, I cannot help to wonder how much insight, enjoyment, and fruit I would miss out on by simply continuing on the path I have been pursuing.

Already on this trip I have been able to reflect and receive insight on what has gone well and what has not, what is building the life that is desirable and what is destroying that image.

Nature has a funny way of giving you these types of thoughts, a certain perspective on life that, had you remained among the concrete and steel constructions of human existence it may be that you never would receive them.

Do you really have the same thoughts washing your face in a gas station bathroom versus the water from a waterfall? How about walking among cars on a paved sidewalk against walking a dirt path next to a soft stream as you dance a winding dance through an ancient forest? Or may we compare driving past one of Ohio’s highest points “Mount Rumpke”, the dump in Springfield, with the incomprehensible creation of the mountains made by God?

My normal existence does not draw me naturally into a deeper way of thinking, and therefore I miss out on a deeper way of living.

Because my thinking is stunted, I often find that I am not able to find the solutions I desire until I choose to back away from the issues at hand and gain perspective.

Freedom Among the Trees

There are rules here. Like there are times when you need passes to enter certain areas. You cannot park in certain places. You definitely aren’t supposed to feed the chipmunks.

But no one stops you from walking off the path a bit and peeing among the trees. And no one seems offended when you swim in a waterfall. There isn’t a time crunch to make it to the summit. And no one seems to mind if you run down the mountain.

The freedom experienced here is not necessarily the absence of rules, but necessarily the attachments to things: to concern for how people think of you, to the things you are connected with back in the place you call home, for connection to anything but the nature that surrounds you.

Your phone is not connected to the internet. After awhile, you stop checking for new notifications. Work becomes something out of reach, and eventually out of mind.

After a few miles, you no longer care if your hair is a mess or you are breathing hard or sweating, you are just glad to be making it.

Your anxious, complicated, and overly coordinated life is swept away by the swaying of fir trees.

Freedom fills your nostrils and you breathe in the fresh air of a life removed.

Challenge: Get Away

It doesn’t have to be way out west. It can be your local park. Just get out and nature. It does something to you. Leave your phone at home, take your shoes off and walk in the grass, breathe deep walking among the trees.

Getting away might just be the key to finding what you are looking for.