I’m going through an interesting period. It’s an autumnal period, appropriately enough. Some old, wrong beliefs are dying, which is great, but I feel restless. I want to see little green shoots poking through the decay, but it’s not time for that. It’s time to slow down and settle into the muck. That’s where the sustenance is. I need to burrow.

This past weekend I went camping. Okay, glamping is more like it, thanks to my sister and bro-in-law. I was able to walk through pine needles and moss and smell the glorious rot of the forest. I watched a beetle climb on top of a fallen leaf, then quickly scurry into the dirt.

So I think God’s wisdom for me during this time is…you ready for this? To be the beetle. To dive into a deeper layer of spiritual life. Apparently, I can’t get to it without engaging the soil. The soil of reading and receiving, meditating, absorbing. I’m still restless, but ready. I’m giving myself permission.

I don’t know what the little green shoots will look like. If I did, I wouldn’t need the muck. I’d just bypass that step. But life doesn’t work that way. If I’m gonna grow, I need times of shedding the old and emerging different, deeper, better. Otherwise, I’d be hanging onto what’s shallow and eventually dry out.

I think that beetle was onto something…