Off the grid

I know it has been way too long since I have posted. Life gets that way sometimes.  I have not dropped off the face of the earth, but for more than a week, I have been off the grid. With the exception of a few minutes of a weak data connection on my phone, I have been disconnected from the internet.  Even this brief message is being tapped out on the teeny tiny screen on my phone, a few words visible at a time.

A few days ago,  I was finally able to carve out a pocket of time to write.

I carried my books and papers and the aging laptop to the screen porch, a little dusty from its winter hibernation, but still a place where I don't have to make excuses just to sit.  There is always something else urgent to do, things left waiting, orphan tasks calling loudly from the other room. But even to those urgencies, I shut the door and hung a proverbial sign "Back later."  I was off the grid in more ways than one. No answering emails, no all-consuming technical distractions.

And I sat. For a long while, I just sat. I did not read. I did not feel compelled to write. I didn't have to make excuses just to watch the trees and listen to the early spring birds. I sat. I prayed. I listened. I thought.

Off the grid?  No, I think, just on the right one.

Be still,
and know that I am God.

             Psalm 46.10