Caring for My Soul

The days - if we let them - will get away from us. Before we know it, we will have given them to things that really don't matter much. We'll give them to worry, to stress, to pain, to boredom, or to waiting. Freely, we just give our time away.

Beside my desk, or bed, or favorite chair, or even in the car, I try to keep something close to me that helps me remember the importance of time. These things can be photos, notes that I've written, or a book.

One of my favorite books, given to me long ago by a friend, is a book of hours. It's a simple set of pages separated into days of the week and then into specific hours of each day. I've had the book 10 years now and haven't started or finished it. My practice is to pick up the book when I think about it and turn to the page that represents the day and time best. Today, I picked up the book and turned to Monday, Noon. There I found a piece written by John Burroughs.
An excerpt that means a lot to me:

Nature-love as Emerson knew it, and as Wordsworth knew it, and as any of the choicer spirits of our time have known it, has distinctly a religious value. It does not come to a man or a woman who is wholly absorbed in selfish or worldly or material ends. Except ye become in a measure as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of Nature - as Audubon entered it, as Thoreau entered it, as Bryant and Amiel entered it, and as all those enter it who make it a resource in their lives and an instrument of their culture.

John Burroughs, American (1837-1921)