great outdoors

great outdoors
enjoying a sunset near the International Airport

Sunday, March 07, 2010

O Shenandoah!

Seems a bit ironic that the classic folk song "Shenandoah" was my college's theme song and that I found it distasteful back when I was attending school football games. How could the band go from a rousing Fleetwood Mac tune to Shenandoah?

Years later, after I developed a love for canoeing, I had the opportunity to do a solo trip on the actual river Shenandoah, in Virginia. It became a deep and personal memory for me, riding in silence discovering animals and riffles on my own, and lugging a 70-plus pound canoe on my own.

Recently, I inherited a few CDs from a friend. ONe of them had a rendition of Shenandoah on it. And now, every time I listen to it, I tear up a little. I can relate to the longing expressed in those great lyrics, and I don't see it as a nerdy, old-fashioned song anymore.

See this version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMsfkEMZREU

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

bathroom prayers

During a few minutes of unplanned alone time (wife went to retrieve laundry) I decided to pull out a book by Madeleine L'Engle called And It Was Good. Within a chapter entitled "Protecting God" is a neat section about how we shouldn't separate the spiritual from the non-spiritual, ending in a nice conclusion: "If we cannot pray in the bathroom, it is not likely that we will be able to pray anywhere." And on that note: let's find a good potty read!