Long View

This is one of the views from Lincoln Beach Park on Utah Lake. It is looking north toward the snow-covered and cloud-layered Wasatch Mountains.

Last week I took several long walks, a few long drives, and several long meditation periods. That wasn’t my plan at the start of the week. However, it became a week in which I very much needed the long view.

Lincoln Beach is about 40 minutes from where I live. Though half of the drive is on major highway, the other half is through quiet country roads. It’s farmland. It’s ranch land. It’s rural Utah.

Last week I needed quiet. I needed rural. In a mental and emotional health way. I needed departure from the regular rhythm of my days. I needed departure from thinking, blessed thinking. I needed return to feeling. Amidst spaciousness.

Lincoln Beach was home to this flock of seagulls on one morning. I loved hearing them and other nearby birds in morning symphony. I needed nature. And long view. And inner music.

There are times, aren’t there, when we humans need a kind of reset. Be it from particular incident, or from something much more cumulative. Or both. They so often go together.

Last week was one of those times for me. And though there are choices of how reset might happen, Lincoln Beach was a gift for me. I loved the view across the lake. I needed to find long view within me.

And marvel.