Back in the Saddle

In some respects, it seems like only last week since I wrote to you. In reality, I’ve been away from my keyboard and my regular work for six weeks.

My brain was tired and my soul depleted. It was good to get away. My spizzerinctum is renewed and I’m back in the saddle again.

While I was away from my keyboard, I spent thirty-one mornings with Psalm 18. After my walk and with coffee in-hand, I opened to this chapter and contemplated my way through all fifty verses each morning. Some mornings that took twenty minutes. Some mornings a couple of hours. Once my reading concluded, I ruminated until my thoughts ran out.

Ruminate. I recently read a book by Kris Wilson, a Ph.D. in nutrition for ruminating animals—meaning, he studied the diet of animals that chew a cud. A cow would be an example.

You’ve seen cattle lying in the pasture, slowly chewing. So, to ruminate means to sit back, resurrect what you just swallowed, and chew while you contemplate.

To ruminate: I’ve never been any good at sleeping. You would think that after sixty-six years of practice I would improve, but I’m worse at the routine now than ever. Instead of getting up, I stay prone most nights and ruminate.

Another Psalm puts it like this: “I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart; and my spirit ponders.”

It did me a world of good to ruminate while I was away. I deliberately structured my days with no agenda. Night is dark, insular, quiet, enveloping. The time to ruminate proved rejuvenating.

God’s Word is remarkable. Every morning, reading the same chapter for thirty-one days—you would think the passages would become stale. But they were new and alive and vibrant each morning. The lack of agenda meant I had time for my soul to fully work its way through its considerations, its contemplations, its questions—its ruminations.

There was one crisis. Since I was determined to avoid my keyboard, it was cataclysmic to discover I had no paper upon which to write my revelations. But the crisis was averted when I found a small notebook at the grocery. The cover declares, “Be the Sunshine.”

I also noted the difference in my disposition when I read Psalm 18 and when I read the news.

The news has been alarming over the last six weeks. But more on that another time. What’s important now is the contrast. Glance through the news. Ruminate on Scripture.