This afternoon I took a long walk because I felt I needed it, first around the cathedral, then past the New Church, and then along the dike, where the mills are that one sees in the distance as one walks near the station. There is so much expressed in this familiar landscape and surrounding; it seems to say: “Be of good courage; fear not.” — Vincent Van Gogh, April 1877, in a letter to a friend
Is there such a place for you — where the sights and sounds have power to soothe your soul — where the landscape seems to embrace you and whisper that life is good, that the world is indeed lovely?
Some folks travel a long way and spend a lot of money in search of such a place. Some people walk into their backyard. And for some of us, perhaps, the journey is one of time, not space. But that the soul hungers for place, there can be no doubt. How we define that place is up to each of us.
Vacation season is as good a time as any to think about the place we’re looking for, I suppose. We take our vacations, after all, in search of a terrain that isn’t the terrain that has become so routine and familiar. Vacation is a way of awakening ourselves, isn’t it? Time away opens our eyes both to the new we long to discover and the mundane we leave behind.
Every vacation, it seems to me, contains two strange and powerful moments — that moment when the familiar vanishes from the rear view mirror and the moment when we arrive back home. The stuff in between can be wonderful or disastrous, but those two moments—anticipation and return — are always guaranteed to stir my soul.
How about you? Have you gotten away and returned, or are you still anticipating the journey? And how does the familiar feel once you’ve come home again?
When our dog, Daisy, and I go for a walk, we journey across familiar terrain (though, judging from Daisy’s reactions, the smells are constantly new). Van Gogh was onto something. There is amazing power in the familiar, in the common ground passing beneath our feet, the trees nodding their blessings, the homes set just so, and a dog’s twitching tail leading the way through it all. It’s just this side of boring and a breath away from amazing.
So, enjoy your time away if you are blessed with such, but be sure also to discover anew the familiar terrain of your life. Take a walk; drive around a bit (and remember to gather again with the other wandering souls in church).
Something beautiful and holy awaits you right here in the place where you are building your life. Look, listen. “Be of good courage,” it says. “Fear not.”
[The Rev. Mark Westmoreland (mwestmoreland@fayettevillefirst.com) is senior pastor of Fayetteville First United Methodist Church.]
