Hey, friends ~

Happy Monday to you all from a beautiful corner of Vermont!

One of the great gifts of retreating from the hustle & bustle of daily life when I’m on study leave is having space to think about things a little more deeply. Ideas that I’ve forgotten about bubble back up to the surface, and I’m reinvigorated to try new things – or to revisit things of old. 

It doesn’t quite count as “old,” but I’ve been thinking about how much I love writing the Monday Musings – and how much many of you enjoy reading it! Yet somehow I haven’t found the right rhythm to make it a regular practice. 

Thankfully, we have a new percussion section at Wellington that will hopefully help keep the Monday Musings on a more regular beat! 

I asked our seminary intern, Alex Barnes, if she would be interested in writing every other issue – and thankfully, she said yes! So sometimes I’ll be the one sending these musings your way, and sometimes they’ll come from Alex, but they will definitely come your way more regularly for as long as she’s with us. Who knows? Maybe by June, when we tearily close out her internship, the discipline of this reflection will have developed a steady heartbeat of its own.

Did you know that it’s so quiet out here in Vermont that I can hear the leaves dropping from the trees? It’s true! May you open your ears wide this week, and be blessed by the unexpected delights you might hear, too. 

peace,

Ann-Louise

p.s. I snapped the photo above on a long walk through the woods the other day with my friend Sharon. I love the interplay of fall leaves and bright green moss – that which was giving life to that which is becoming.

I came across a Wendell Berry poem a few weeks ago that was stunningly perfect to bring on study leave with me. It begins – 

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Those opening lines alone are like a balm to my soul.
They encourage me to take a deep breath, and to let my stirring become quiet, even just for a moment, even when I am far away from the tall trees of the woods.

If you’d like to read the full poem – I Go Among the Trees by Wendell Berry, just click here. 

That’s all for this week, my friends!
I’ll be back in the office on Thursday, and I look forward to
seeing you in church – online! – on Sunday.