Restless

It's late Monday afternoon, and I have been at our cabin in Ashe County since last Thursday. For weeks we had planned to spend the weekend of July 4th here with my brother and his family, since it's normally the start of blueberry season and there's a lot going on. I arrived early so I'd have some time to myself, and planned to stay through the following Wednesday. That way I'd have a couple of days of solitude on the back end too.

Needless to say, things have not worked out as I imagined. Not in a bad way, mind you -- it's been a nice weekend, especially spending time with my nieces, Catherine and Grace. It seemed like a lot happened during the day work-wise on Thursday, then Steve arrived with the girls Thursday night. Pat and Sarah arrived early Friday, and we were off to the races. Dinners on the deck, the Christmas in July festival in West Jefferson, fishing, blueberry picking, wine drinking, and a lot of good eats. Dan arrived Saturday, fresh from a mission trip to Jamaica with Jesse and Hunter. The weather was great (till Sunday) -- low 50s at night and right about 70 during the day. Not bad for July in North Carolina.

Yesterday was more mellow, since we had off-and-on rain, and then Steve, Sarah and the girls left to return to The Real World. Another mellow, rainy morning today, and then Pat & Dan left. So today I finally got the solitude I thought I came here for.

It rained again, off and on, until early afternoon, and it was foggy until a few hours ago. It's always quiet here, but when it's foggy and overcast (or snowy), it's silent. No matter how many times I've been up here by myself, it's still a little unnerving for it to be so quiet.

And so I have been restless all day. I've had things to do for work, and a few things to do around here, but basically I've mostly been lost, kind of confused. I'd think of something I needed to do, maybe something involving tools, go down to the storage room to get what I needed...then stand there asking myself, what did I come in here for? I've just not been able to settle down and concentrate all day.

A week or so ago I thought I wanted time up here to be alone and have quiet time to pray without interruption. Now I had that time, and I couldn't settle down. I'd think about praying and then get distracted by some other thought or activity, and prayer would go out the window. I have spent the day being called gently by God to spend some quiet time, and I have been running away.

The sun finally came out a while ago and dried the furniture on the deck. It's not really sunny, but there are peeks of sun in between the clouds and it hasn't rained in a while. I finally stopped running away, and sat down on the glider, which is my favorite Prayer Chair. I closed my eyes and tried to pray. Then Moose wouldn't settle down - he'd pace around then finally lie down, then two minutes later he'd walk over to another place and lay down. Then the "chattering monkeys" that Henri Nouwen writes about started up -- you know, all the thoughts, to do lists, people, and things that spring to mind as soon as you still yourself. This has been the story for the last three months -- when I finally made the time to pray, I couldn't bring myself to truly connect.

But this time I was determined. This time I was not going to run away from the Lord, I was going to run away from the monkeys, and before long I felt the first peace I'd had all day. Maybe I should try this more often...