Trailing clouds of glory

After a really long, lovely day, I am still awake at one thirty in the morning. I have GOT to get off my finals week sleep pattern... there's really no excuse at this point.

Today, I went to City Creek with leg-hair that was pushing a half-inch past the horrifying-but-in-a-near-death-crisis-it-is-maybe-acceptable-length-limit (I wish I were lying to you. I really do) and I had no near-death excuse. I was also in hiking attire and mayyyybe didn't shower or wear makeup. That's fine, I feel like. My leg hair was catching in the sun, I was getting eye-insulted by every fashionable person I passed. I was also buying lingerie for a friend's bridal shower next weekend. The guy at the register would've looked more natural with the robe, bra, and thong in hand. Let's be honest. And maybe, rather than look for summer clothes or dresses to wear in China when I am teaching.... maybe I just bee-lined it to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and spent an abnormal amount of time selecting which caramel apple to bring on our hike. The good news is, white chocolate with Snickers was the right choice. And those white chocolate-covered Oreos, that we didn't necessarily need, but couldn't necessarily leave in the store? Ohhhh, YEAH. I mean. I feel like they fueled us right up the mountain.

Now, I am reading a conference talk, and really liking it. You can check it out here, if you'd like. It references a Wordsworth poem I quite like:


Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Of patience, Paul said: "Let us lay aside ... the sin which doth so easily beset  us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us."

So I don't know. Maybe it's the crazy-happy-it's-SUMMER-kind-of-voice-in-my-head talking, but I am in love with days like today. And I am in love with the phrase, "run with patience." How often do you equate running with patience? I guess if you were a marathon hottie, maybe all the time. But for me, running takes my thoughts to haste. I think of running through life, running out of time, running errands, running around, etc., and it doesn't seem peaceful. But to run with patience - to take the time to climb a mountain, or laugh with a friend, to enjoy a sunny day, or to stand recklessly on a look-out in high winds and your face toward the sun - how lovely is that? How much more peaceful does that make life through trials, through pressures, through just living? To run with patience, and to remember that we come into this world trailing clouds of glory - of joy and happiness, of divinity and peace, and that we have eternities to learn and to grow; to be.

You'll excuse my ramblings, I hope, but man. Slowing down and having the time to hike a mountain has always been an experience I can only call spiritual. I love this world, I love that I am alive in it, and I love the God who made me what I am and loved me enough to put me in it.