Watching Our Steps

a devotional for late spring

Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

Thank you for joining us!

Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:

First of all, I highly recommend going back to read the insightful responses to our deeply personal discussion about pain. So much wisdom there! But I took personal comfort in the following comment from

Sharron Bassano

on last week’s essay about Julian of Norwich:

Thank you for reminding us. I have long taken comfort in Julian's promise. Especially as society spins more and more into the realm of madness. Those of us who are not believers, still must seek solace. A slightly different translation that resonates with me is, "All will be good in the end. And if it is not good now, it is because it' s not the end."

This is beautiful, Sharron! Thank you for commenting! Sharron writes a newsletter here on Substack called LEAVES, a wonderfully eclectic mix of fiction, poetry, musings, and wisdom. Highly recommend checking it out!

If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!

Now, on with this week’s devotional…

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mama bird
chides in a nearby branch
as I walk unknowing
down the path
I think I know by heart;

in her reprimand
a warning:

take it not for granted
that the landscape changes!

for the paths you know
hold hidden treasures,

and that
and that
and that
you'll have to take
on faith!

The other day, our neighbor told us that they had watched a doe give birth in their backyard, and we all expressed our joy, because the deer who wander through our woods become recognizable faces. It felt like a common celebration for a new life that belongs to all of us.

Knowing that this little fawn would be curled up in the underbrush in any given yard while Mama browsed nearby gives us a new perspective on the way we move about our days.

Similarly, we have a common local bird who constantly reminds us to be careful of our feet. The junco—a tiny brown songbird with a dusty black head—nests on the ground in hidden whorls of grass, tucked under shrubs and at the base of trees. Most of the time you don’t know you’ve found a junco nest until an indignant mama flutters out of it, making a unique “chip” sound at you to draw your attention away from her hidden speckled eggs.

Suddenly you’re reminded to walk carefully, to avoid the scrubby edges of the woods where nests may be concealed.

I was once told by a boss that I moved too fast through my work, and it made me prone to mistakes. What she couldn’t know is that I moved fast because that job--that workplace--made me incredibly anxious, and moving fast seemed like the best way through. Like running across hot coals.

But I took her words to heart, out of a concern to be a better employee, and forced myself to move more slowly and mindfully.

Funny thing is…moving carefully has a way of making us see things differently. I never learned to love that job, but forcing myself to take each step with care to avoid mistakes invited me to find hidden beauty in it. The hummingbirds at the feeder outside the office window. The early morning quiet in an opening shift, when there’s no one else around. That first sip of breakroom coffee, a sacred act.

When we watch our steps, we see more than just our own feet. We are given a vision of worlds behind the world we know. The space between breaths. The precious nature of What Is Hidden.

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Thank you for reading!

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