Refreshing the Soul

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Some weeks are hard – hard to keep smiling, hard to see the beauty of life, and for no good reason. This has been one of those weeks, and the last few days in particular have been a struggle emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. What can happen from one week to the next that can make my life, which I know very well is so much better than I deserve, suddenly seem bleak, or frustrating, or exhausting?

That change is usually something in my heart, something in my inner self, that has become disconnected and out of joint. Knowing myself to be a very dedicated introvert, I recognize that part of my struggle has been the sheer level of activity that takes me outside of my sphere, outside of my cozy home life, without sufficient time to recharge myself. But I realized something else – Not only has there been no time for solitude this past week and a half or so, but I haven’t spent time in God’s wonderful Creation, which is one place that never fails to refresh my awareness of beauty, blessings, and life’s bounty. Time spent in God’s Creation always seems to renew my sense of perspective. Being an introvert, I spend a lot of time lost inside my own thoughts. When my thoughts are tuned to God’s goodness and to beauty and joy, my thoughts are a wonderful place to be. But when my thoughts are in a turmoil, perspective is almost impossible to have. What better way to get out of my own tumultuous thoughts, than to lose myself in discovering the joys of God’s Creation?

After church today, the girls and I went on a hike. We left later than we intended to, since we got sidetracked cleaning the loft, so we thought our hike would end up being truncated. Our goal had been to get to Hole-in-the-Wall, which we decided against because of the time, so instead we decided to explore the ravines and draws spiderwebbing off our well-worn jeep trail.

Clambering over deadfall and under deadfall, scrambling through steep ravines, down ledges as tall as we are, slipping and sliding over week-old snow still clinging to the shadowed places, carefully parting barbed wire fences to fit through between the strands of wire, laying prone in the stiff, brown grass to marvel at a pinecone, or at the funny little spiked heads of what were in the summer Wild Bergamot – What a delight!

Flickers of white gave away the silently fleeing deer, and Dixie’s black pony could be glimpsed in our east pasture when we came out on top into a meadow. As beautiful as was the view while in the meadow, with Grandma’s driveway in the distance and Harney Peak away on the horizon, I like the ravines the best. The cool shadows, the piles of deadfall blocking the way, the snow and ice in pools at the bottom, the sense of the unknown – What is around the next bend? Where will this ravine take us?

In all the time we’ve been out here, there are still places I haven’t explored. The unknown, unfollowed, un-searched-out ravines. The distant hilltop. The dry creekbed. If I climb that hill, what will be on the other side? What is this stand of trees hiding? What is at the end of this draw? Should I go left or right?

It is impossible to stay lost in my tumultuous thoughts when God is drawing my thoughts out of myself, into something so much more beautiful than I have a capacity to understand or contain or express.

The afternoon gave way to evening. The clouds shone, and the red earth seemed to soak up every ray of light and cast it off again, luminous in the strange golden light of sunset. Then sunset gave way to dusk, and the red-gold gave way to the colors of nighttime. Lavender shadows settled into the ravines, and the clouds became the soft grey of slumber.

Almost as swiftly as the last glow faded from the sky, the warmth settled out of the air. A delicious chill sifted between the trees. The breeze picked up ever so slightly.

December is a beautiful time of year. But any time spent out in the open, breathing deep of the freshness of the earth, anytime spent marveling at God’s wonders is sure to be medicine to the weary soul.

It was.

Laura Elizabeth

Quiet Day

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

A good day is a quiet day. The savor of life, for me, is the quiet and enlivening action of being. In our society, we have all but forgotten how to simply be. We have an agenda for the whole day, meals mapped out, road routes planned ahead of time, work schedules set practically in stone, social lives that keep us away from home, all in an attempt to be full, to live life to its fullest, to be efficient, to be productive, to be visibly successful – That is the mark of our society – Meshing cogs, perfectly timed machinery, society run like efficient computers, filling our minds and our lives so full that what we’ve retained is irretrievable, lost in the stimulus.

But what about a full life that is full in its quietness? What about a life that is brimming with possibility, instead of a scheduled, itemized list? What in the meshing cogs of our society really leaves room for creativity, spontaneity, and breathing deep of life? What about forsaking some of the world’s marks of success to pursue a kind of success that is soul-deep, built on relationships with God and people? My heart hungered for a slower life, even when I didn’t realize it, but out here where there are miles upon miles of hills and trees and craggy peaks and rugged ravines, I find it easier, so much easier to simply be.

I want to live a life that is full of purpose and hard work, that is productive and industrious and useful, but I want that productivity and industriousness and usefulness to be plaited together with quietness, solitude, and relationships, and detached from the matrix of society. A four-day-per-week work schedule is ideal! I am so thankful.

On my days off, I feel as if I flee into God’s creation, hungering to see nothing of what people have made, and simply to revel in the wonders of the natural world. For a couple of months, I’ve tried to make it down to Hole-in-the-Wall, one of my family’s favorite haunts. Finally! Sarah and I had an hour and a half or so yesterday and we made a quick jaunt down our old jeep trail to that wonderful place.

The hardwood trees have all lost their leaves by now, or mostly, and the air was crisp and ripe with autumn. We hiked along the creek bed for most of the way, scrambling over rocks, jumping from one to the other, getting tangled in young trees which are growing bravely up through the rocky creek bottom. Battle Creek was flowing high this summer. Sarah is a tall girl, and the clumps of tangled grass and leaves above her head show the waterline to have been at least 7 feet deep in this bend of the canyon!

Hole-in-the-Wall is whittled away a little more each year, but there it has been for about 100 years. I wonder how much longer it will be there, and big enough for us to climb through and hike over? I hope I never have to see it collapsed, the whole ridge crumbled to a pile of rock, but one never knows – A little more of it tumbles down with every rain. It still enchants me.

The canyon leading to Hole-in-the-Wall was glowing brightly – Blue sky, a little breeze, and warm sunlight. What more could we ask for? I guess the one thing we could have asked for was a little more time. Salsa preparations and housework in the early afternoon and small group in the evening didn’t leave a lot of time, but we still had the leisure to enjoy our scramble to and from, to stop and marvel at fallen leaves, garnet sand, and orange berries. We had time to be.

It was a good day. A quiet sort of day.

Places to See | Stavkirk

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

A wonderful local attraction a little off the beaten trail – by that, I mean not exactly your average tourist outing – is the Stavkirke in Rapid City. This Chapel in the Hills is an historic replica of a church in Norway, the Borgund stavkirke in Laerdal, which was built in the 12th century.

The word stavkirke refers to the construction of the building, using staves or pillars made of Douglas fir, the closest possible substitution for the fir trees used by the Norwegians in the 12th century. The church is constructed entirely of wood, except for the iron used in the door knockers and locks. Instead of nails, wooden dowels are used. Some speculate that this is what has allowed churches like the Borgund stavkirk to survive to the modern day – Wooden dowels would give a literal flexibility to the building that might not be had with rigid nails.

Up until a few weeks ago, I had never seen the Stavkirke. I had heard of it and seen pictures, and always had wanted to visit – I wasn’t in the least disappointed. It looked a little like the chapel in Frozen, just smaller. The heavy door knockers and huge locks, the covered walkway around the outside of the church, the vaulting rooftops, and the towering doorways with intricate carving – It all seemed like something straight out of a fairytale.

The visitors’ center has a flyer with a history of the building, including a narrative explaining the use of pagan symbolism in the construction of the church, because of the remnants of mythologies and the deeply-held traditions of pagan religions to which people clung, even after the embracing of Christianity by Norwegians.

The Chapel in the Hills was built in the 1960s according to blueprints supplied by the Norwegian Department of Antiquities, a plan pieced together by Drs. Gregerson and Thompson, and financed by Arndt Dahl, a local banker who was himself a first-generation American of Norwegian heritage.

The church is active during the summer months – Lutheran Vespers happen nightly, weddings are hosted, and countless people worldwide stop to see this relic of our heritage. What an oddity! And what a gem! They have an informative website, too, if you want more information on the Chapel in the Hills.

The girls and I visited while Jess was here, but I went back a few days later over my lunch break – The sky was piercingly blue. I retook a few shots and added a few more. There was a couple from Illinois also there – I heard them talking to the gal managing the visitors’ center – and I struck up a conversation with them. They had gone to college in Champaign, my Illinois hometown! What a small world. Turned out the wife was wearing the same shirt I was wearing, just a different color. She said she got hers from some clothing store – I don’t know brand names, so I didn’t know the store. I had gotten mine from Goodwill. We had a chuckle over that one. It was a fun conversation. And I’m pretty sure they found the Stavkirk well worth seeing, too, in spite of all of the louder, snappier tourist attractions there are to see in the Hills.