Boots too small?

King of the snow cave (carved by a rivulet, between his feet)

What I'd like to draw your attention to here is not the snow cave, although standing triumphantly on its thin arched roof was the purpose of the photo.  Rather the boots.

Wonderful, comfortable, hiking boots

It's the boots that will be outgrown by next summer.

I was thinking today how with kids it's easy to know what no longer fits.  Wrists hang out of sleeves, pant cuffs creep upward, the shoes are too tight, and it's obvious.

Somewhere into adulthood we we start accumulating clothes that used to be passed along to friends, relatives, or the local thrift store.  Closets gradually begin to bulge, not so subtly demanding a sorting.

It isn't all that different with our thinking.  As kids grow and learn, they discard outgrown thinking -- tooth fairies and monsters under the bed, and cute

A Lifetime Relationship

Keen boots!

Hiking feet need to be happy feet. In my quest for comfortable hiking boots, I stopped at the local REI store.

The knowledgeable clerks offered guidance and answered questions I didn’t even know I had. And the boots felt like bedroom slippers. Well, pretty close. I had no idea hiking boots could be comfortable!

As I clutched the boot box to my bosom, the clerk asked if I knew about REI membership. I admitted I was not a member now, but had been in the early 70s. “Well then,” he smiled, “You are still a member. It’s a lifetime membership! All they need is your phone number or your address.”

In 1970 we had lived in Carmichael, California, many phone numbers and many addresses ago. It didn’t sound promising. Yet the check-out guy and his computer successfully retrieved my membership from the “archives.”

The integrity of the transaction pleased and amazed me -- that a business would remain so true to its intent, as to have recorded memberships that began over a decade before computers were generally available.

And then I thought of the relationship of mankind to God. That’s a lifetime relationship of integrity too. Even if we don’t report in for years, our creator as infinite Mind knows everyone of His/Her ideas. Wherever we are, whatever our circumstance, this infinite intelligence is right here for us.

So that when we suddenly decide to re-establish that connection, it’s incredibly simple. We haven’t even been archived! We are always on the active list. It’s easier than driving into the parking lot and walking in the door.

A sincere desire to really discover who we are in relation to infinity becomes a mental and spiritual reaching out to the Life of the universe. That help desk is open 24/7 and answers in the language of the heart. And the heart and the feet that make that journey are happy ones.