Intent

Have you made plans that you never seem to follow through with? It’s what we do. Good intentions are assaulted with competing hours or waning willingness. Sometimes an overactive imagination lacks perspective, we have high hopes of getting much accomplished; the willingness is there, but we just run out of gas or the day runs short. My Dad, and I have planned for years to expand our traditional December 23^rd hike to a quarterly event.  You know the story; we plan and talk, but so far it is a theory. As his birthday approached in November, I pondered what to get the man who “has everything”; I devised a plan to walk each month during this 80^th year of his life. The goal is to walk 80 miles along the Cumberland Trail. We may or may not meet our goal but we have a goal, we have moved beyond the talk. Hiking is a beautiful rhythm in nature, demanding at times on the body and richly rewarding to the senses. There is balance for the physical and spiritual. As muscles are invigorated by demand and oxygen; souls are stirred as we examine delicate plants and majestic trees. Minds bathe in wonder and greatness of all that is larger than our daily lives. Wandering, we ponder nature, health, and relationships. We speak much of God, the joy and mystery of our spiritual natures, winding through cathedrals of nature. We have begun; December 23^rd and foggy, I cannot think of a better start.

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