I spent this weekend in beautiful Montreat NC at a planning meeting for the Southern Annual Recreation Workshop. A weekend of bliss, high in the mountains, soaking in the cool breezes and crisp night air, catching up with old friends, and envisioning a workshop to come.
As I left this morning, I felt a sense of adventure. So a drink to quench my thirst and an atlas full of possibilities in hand, I took the long way home. I wound my way back to Atlanta on various state roads twisting through the mountains and foothills continuing to soak in the blessed creation around me. With only one wrong turn and a few short stints on interstate roads, I snuck up on Atlanta through the suburbs taking every last second I could stand of what has been a sort-of vacation before diving into fall classes. Grand mountains reaching toward heaven, leaves beginning to show their colors, baby Christmas trees standing in perfect rows, small towns, old houses with roomy porches and immense lawns....eventually giving way to clear cut subdivisions, gigantic houses with gigantic prices, impatient acts of defensive driving, and all the signs of our consumer society. The long way was joyful while it lasted and will live on in my memory for a long while.
I rather enjoy taking the long way. I've even claimed the first song of the latest album by the Dixie Chicks by that title as my current life theme song. I'm a lover of travel with renewed appreciation for the beauty and majesty of creation. I'm a sufferer of chronic illness who has learned the benefits of not being in such a hurry. I've made homes around the world in every type of place - village, rural, urban, suburban - and never felt like I didn't belong. Who can say when I might "settle down," but I will never forget where I come from, where I've been, or the ones I love.
I will always look for another way, a drive that is more fun, and the triune God who loves me to lead the way.
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