shalom in salem

When I returned from my vacation, I knew that the next three weeks were going to be challenging. I had timed my calendar to give me enough time to complete several projects -- all within a week of each other:

• A quarterly summary of legal cases, PowerPoint presentation, and script -- in three sessions


• An adult Sunday school lesson


• An outline for my Monday night small group Bible study


• A keynote speech for a Salvation Army fundraiser


• A summary of legislation, PowerPoint presentation, and script for a group of workers' compensation attorneys

I am not complaining about the list. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a performer just waiting for my next cue. And that list is almost the equivalent of an actor in a long-running television series who is asked to star in a serious Broadway play while filming his breakaway movie.

OK. The analogy is strained, but you get the point. I was happy to do each of the presentations, but it would be a lot of work.

On Sunday afternoon, I was half way through my list and making good progress on completing preparations for the other half. My dog (Professor Jiggs) does not understand these things. All he knew was that it was a clear sunny day and there were bushes in the park that needed sniffing.

My solution was to combine my preparation with the walk. I picked up my small group book (Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline), and headed off to the park with the dog. While he was enjoying himself, I was walking along, reading, taking notes. The topic was "solitude." I chuckled when I read it -- considering the hectic week I was facing.

A part of one paragraph grabbed my attention, though:

What are some steps into solitude? The first thing we can do is to take advantage of the "little solitudes" that fill our day. * * * There can be little moments of rest and refreshment when we turn a corner and see a flower or a tree.

For whatever reason, I looked up from my book at that very moment. I was in front of my neighbor's house -- the picture at the top of this post. (You may want to click on it to see the full impact of the colors.) I do not know whether it was the colors, the vibrancy, or simply seeing the whole scene anew. Whatever it was, it almost took my breath away. In the beauty, there was a moment of "little solitude."

I had just finished reading an obituary of Albert Hofmann in The Economist. He was an incredible chemist, who had a list of pharmaceutical discoveries to his credit. But he will forever be known as the "father of LSD." After discovering LSD, he experimented with it in the hopes that it could be used either as a psychological tool or as a "sacrament of the modern age." He soon abandoned the latter goal -- for many reasons. But he firmly believed that it was possible to get to the same place without any pharmaceutical assistance.

He related a story of his childhood. He was wandering on a forest path, and upon encountering a windswept field of chrysanthemums, he was "suddenly filled with such a sense of the radiance and oneness of creation" that he thought the vision would last forever.

Albert Hoffman and Richard Foster make the same point. There are ample opportunities for solitude in our lives -- where solitude can create an open space where we can be found by God.

I closed the book, and enjoyed each moment of my walk with Jiggs -- finding the rest, the relaxation, the shalom שָׁלוֹם that exists in every moment.