rest

August 11, 2024

Under the broom tree

It’s an ancient and deeply human question, as relevant today as when the psalmist put it into words three millennia ago. “When the world falls apart, what can the good hope to do” (Ps. 11:3 ICEL)? Or as Eugene Peterson paraphrased it in The Message, “The bottom’s dropped out of the country” and it seems Continue reading

Ruminations

bible, bread of life, broom tree, crisis, dream, Edgar A. Guest, faith, God, God’s whispers, Jeremiah, quietness, renewal, rest, Retreat, returning and rest, sabbath, sacred places, sacred time, sleep, Thoreau, trust, Wendell Berry, When Things Go Wrong, wilderness
July 25, 2021

The call of the cicadas

Waiting, I noticed the midsummer sound of cicadas, their dry rasp foretelling summer’s finale and autumn’s approach, and soon after that, winter. Some find it a sad sound, herald of the season’s ending. I find it mellow comfort: an invitation to rest; to return to the earth, my source; to reground in what is more Continue reading

Uncategorized

autumn, cicadas, midsummer, regrounding, rest, return, return to the earth, returning and rest, summer's end

About Me

Rich Neal is, in no particular order, a wordsmith and graphic designer; lover of typography, books, and publishing; photographer; contemplative; saunterer; and a retired and still-active pastor. He claims neither special wisdom nor particularly deep insight into life, only occasional glimpses of what lies behind the veil along the way. He shares them here in the hope of connecting the pieces of life’s puzzle that come to him in the journey and would consider it a gift if sharing them also connected him with others who travel an unmarked path toward the same unknown end.

rest

Under the broom tree

The call of the cicadas