A Spring Isolation Walk by Joylene M Bailey

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Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash

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I step out my front door and marvel at the matted brown grass on my lawn. Just a few days ago, there was two feet of snow here. It’s a puzzle. But it’s not a puzzle I need to figure out. I’m just glad spring has truly and definitely arrived in my neighbourhood.

The back alleys around here have been paved since last spring and, while I do love the natural look of two tracks through the grass and gravel, it’s a joy to travel this path without slogging through mud and dirty puddles. 

The breeze is just enough to lift my isolation-length hair off my collar, but not enough to hug my sweater around me. And the air is refreshing. Wait, is that eau de fresh-baked bread wafting by?

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The joyful heart sees and reads the world 

with a sense of freedom 

and graciousness.

Despite all the difficult turns on the road, 

it never loses sight 

of the world 

as a gift.

John O'Donohue

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There’s no traffic down these back alleys and, most surprising of all, it’s a great place to meet neighbours I’ve never met before. One man is out puttering near his garage. We exchange information on the state of our families. Everyone is healthy in my house. How about yours? Yes, yes, we are all well.

Farther on, a woman stands on her back step calling to her neighbour across the fence, “Hey Ward! How you doing? Ward! Hey, Ward!” Ward doesn’t hear her, he’s too busy hosing down his driveway. 

When she spies me, she says, “Isn’t it amazing? I can’t hear the traffic on the Henday. I don’t remember it being this quiet in the neighbourhood since we moved in.” 

I guess there are pleasant points to a pandemic. 

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Add Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

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There are at least five dog-walkers out on the main streets that cross the maze of back alleys I’m taking. They wave or nod or say a short hello. But they don’t stop to chat. I find myself wondering if that’s because of the current self-isolation in effect, or if it’s because I’m not walking a dog.

A couple of children whiz by on their bikes, single file. They give me a furtive glance. Obviously, they’ve been warned about the six-foot rule. I hear other children behind a fence, bantering back and forth in the high-pitched voices I usually hear drifting from the school playground. Two doors down, on a raised deck, an almost-grown girl giggles into her cell phone. 

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Image by Lori Clouse from Pixabay

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On the home stretch I stop behind our house. I soak up the sun-warmed surface of the fence as I peer over it into our sunroom, where hubby has set up his self-isolation home office. I wave wildly, trying to get his attention, but he is absorbed in a web-ex meeting with other grocery company executives, collectively finding their way through a corona-made obstacle course.

Not all the heroes are on the front line. 

Our windchimes bing-dong as though to say see you soon and I head towards the end of the alley. At the corner, a wren high in a towering poplar sings its tuneful song in reply to a similar song nearby. I try to find him in the tangle of limbs and branches, but I can’t. 

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Look at the birds of the air;

 they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Matthew 6:26 NIV

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Half a block later I’m back at my front door. My home welcomes me like an old friend. We have been very close these last several weeks. She has sheltered me and provided me with all kinds of things to do, places to sit and work and be. Being is what we are still doing, despite isolation and six-foot rules. Being neighbourly, being active, being reflective. Carrying on. Life is different right now, but the world is still beautiful. God is still there. Still here.

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Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay 

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Joy enjoys her back-alley walks in Edmonton, Alberta, where she is self-isolating with The Cowboy and Babe. Most of her writing projects have been put on hold during this season as she creates community in isolation with her Tea-Time blog posts at Scraps of Joy.

My Journey With Jesus by Nina Faye Morey

The story of the two men “On the Road to Emmaus” reflects the journey that many of us experience in our walk with Jesus (Luke 24:13-32). They were preoccupied with feelings of sadness, grief, and disappointment because of their own failure and their leaders’ betrayal of their Lord. They neither recognized Jesus nor realized the true meaning of His crucifixion. They’d hoped that Jesus was the Messiah who would redeem the Israelites from Roman rule. They failed to comprehend the spiritual significance that His death and reported resurrection held for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:28). They hadn’t yet connected all the dots between the events they’d just witnessed and what Jesus had revealed to them through His teachings.

Just as Jesus came to meet and walk beside these downcast men on the road to Emmaus, Jesus comes to walk alongside many of us on our painful journeys through darkness and despair. We’ve all walked this road to Emmaus at least once during our lifetime. We’ve all experienced fear, failure, disappointment, sadness, hopelessness, uncertainty, and death. And just as He did for these men, Jesus comes to us and opens our eyes to reveal Himself as our true Lord and Saviour. The road to Emmaus is whatever road we’re trudging down when we encounter Jesus, resolve to walk and talk with Him, and open ourselves up to His radical transformation of our lives. It may be a calm experience like the one described in Luke, or it may be a more dramatic encounter like Paul’s on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-9).

As we travel life’s road, Jesus joins us on our journey even though we may fail to recognize Him. It is His Spirit who arouses our curiosity and draws us towards Him. Like Moses, wonderstruck over the miracle of the Burning Bush, we find ourselves drawn aside from our usual path by a deep desire to explore a slow-burning but imperishable fascination with a spiritual world that’s difficult to fathom (Exodus 3:1-3). Our curiosity to know more about God leads us on an incessant spiritual quest. We find ourselves seeking fellowship with Him through His Word, prayer, devotionals, and meditative readings.

It’s at this point in our spiritual journey that we discover God is not some unseen, passive, “abstract” deity, but a very real and holy being who demands our complete loyalty, commitment, and devotion. Like Peter, it’s the crucial moment when we decide to “drop our nets,” to leave our former lives behind, and commit ourselves to Him (Matthew 4:18-20). It’s the moment when we open ourselves up to spiritual change.

At this stage in our spiritual development, we come to realize that this new life to which God is calling us is not only full of promises, but it’s also full of demands. We have not only accepted Christ, but the bonds, vows, and responsibilities that come with our spiritual conversion. God desires us to be active and fruitful in our spiritual lives. He’s given us gifts that He wants us to use to help and encourage others, open their hearts and minds to Him, and help direct them down the path in life that He’s chosen for them.

The Lenten season allows me to set aside extra time to walk and talk with Jesus. It enables me to focus more fully on my risen Lord and Saviour, reflecting on and renewing my relationship with Him. Lenten practices like Bible study and prayer open my eyes, move my heart, deepen my faith, and help me grow on my spiritual journey. Above all, Lent is a time for me to meditate on the profound meaning of Christ’s sacrifice and celebrate His eternal victory over sin and death.

Photos: Pixabay

Walk Like a Postman by Marnie Pohlmann

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. - Psalm 119:105

I’m sure I first learned to walk in order to keep up with my brothers as they played with a toy I wanted, but it was my father who taught me to walk with purpose.

Dad was a postman, and on summer vacation, I was occasionally invited to walk the mid-morning portion of his route with him. I wanted to, because it usually ended in a treat from the ice-cream bicycle we would meet along the way. Dad walked fast, though. He had to cover a certain amount of ground. Sometimes I ran to catch up, but soon I learned to walk quickly alongside rather than dilly-dally along the way. No matter how hot the day was, no matter how heavy his mailbag, no matter how grumpy the dogs along the way, Dad walked with purpose to get the job done.

As young as I was when I learned to walk like Dad, I haven’t seemed to translate that physical walk to my spiritual or writing journey. I still wander all over the landscape. My trail of small size six footprints meander along, climbing around the mountain of my life. I may be going higher and higher, but I sometimes pause to play in the mud or flowery dales alongside the trail, forgetting I need to move forward. Occasionally I go to the edge of the path to look down on the valley below. Each circle of the mountain provides a different view of the same past. Each one closer, perhaps, to how God views the events of my life from His eternal perspective.

Looking back along that trail I can see points where steps I took led me into new territory that would be life-changing, though I seldom realized it at the time. One such step happened when we moved from small town living into a city.

I don’t remember how I found her number, but I screwed up the courage to phone. I spoke with Linda Wegner, leader of the local Inscribe writers’ group in Saskatoon. I asked about the next meeting. A few nights later, this small town introvert was driving along unfamiliar streets across a big city to a stranger’s home to meet people I did not know. I was not even sure if I should be in their company! These were writers!

(At this meeting I also met a writer who was a Professor at a local Bible School in Saskatoon. Later that year, when life changed our path again, my husband started his journey to ministry at that school.)

Half a dozen years later we left Saskatoon and I was heartbroken to leave the friends in the His Imprint writers’ group. When I settled into my new home, I put out word I was starting a Christian writers’ group. I need and enjoy the connection, the encouragement, the instruction, and the spiritual support. And I find much of what I need in my new Inscribe group in Northern British Columbia.

I am not published as much as some of the writers I have been privileged to meet along the way, but I have been inspired to be purposeful in my writing. I am encouraged to be purposeful not only in the practice of writing, but in the sharing of that writing. I have contributed monthly to this Inscribe writers online blog for over a year now, and this past February I started my own blog as well.

I'm learning to write like a postman walks.

He Walks With Me – by Tandy Balson

I read somewhere that writer’s block is when your imaginary friends stop talking to you!  That may be true for those who write fiction but as a non-fiction writer that's not an excuse I can use.

The worst thing I can do when I am stuck for words is to sit alone at the keyboard and try to force the words to flow through my fingertips.   A change of scenery can be the very thing needed to inspire my creativity.

Most often that means spending time in nature.  God has surrounded me with beauty and wants me to take the time to enjoy it.  When I walk and let my mind roam free I allow him to speak to me. 

 I have just come back from a vacation where I was blessed to be able to go for long walks along the beach most mornings.  As I walked I often had the strains of the song In The Garden going through my mind. Although I was at a beach and not a garden, the words were still appropriate: “And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own; And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known..”

The joy I receive as I choose to walk with him is an experience that is able to refresh and energize at the same time.

Last summer I found inspiration at a lake I frequented.  Sometimes it was a walk through the trees that lined the shore.  Other times a bench beside the lake became my quiet spot for reflection.  Watching the sun set with no buildings to impede the view would make my heart sing.  There is something about the beauty and peacefulness of nature that restores my soul.  

I had never thought of these times as artist’s dates but that is exactly what they were.  The greatest artist of all, the one who paints the sky with muted shades at sunset and the trees and flowers with a vast array of vivid colours wants to spend time with me.  When I stop my striving and bask in the beauty he has surrounded me with, I can’t help but be inspired.