On The Wisdom of Sauntering

Dear Ones:

I’m writing this on the first of what will be a week of hot days, and after taking my dog for a walk in the “cool” 82-degree evening.  And I’m planning on heading down to New Orleans next week to move my kid for college, where it will be even hotter!  This weather reminds me of the years I lived in Kentucky, where I learned several ways to adjust to the heat.  The first was to force myself to go outside so I could acclimate.  The second was to search for streams or pools while out hiking, and dip my head down into the water and then straighten up, letting the water run from my hair down my body, giving me sweet relief.  And the third was the art of sauntering – slowing down drastically so that it took less energy to move, and so generated less heat.  It was hard to saunter, at first.  But my natural pace just didn’t work in this place, and so, with practice, I learned to appreciate slower movement.  I found myself automatically moving into a saunter while out walking with my pup this evening.

Sometimes we can change the situation we’re in to make things more comfortable.  And sometimes we have to learn how to deal with the discomfort, because it’s not going away, and we can’t leave it.  We can find ways to acclimate, we can find resources to help us deal with it, and we can make changes in ourselves that make it easier to be there.

Our lives, in these times, are like this.  One of the key characteristics of the liberal religious tradition is the understanding that revelation is not sealed – new ways of understanding arise with every experience, every reading and interpretation of sacred texts, every discovery about how the world works.  We move.  Sometimes that movement is in response to an external force, like responding to our political climate – and sometimes it’s driven from something within, like a change in understanding of who or how we can be together.  Often, they go together.

During this hot summer month, may we remember that it takes movement to realize our hopes and dreams, and that sometimes that movement is slow, but we’ll get there – like sauntering.

In faith and love, Karen

[July 31, 2024]