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I have been working under a deadline the past few weeks, trying to finish all the details of a writing project. I kept telling myself, “I can’t waste time going on a long morning walk. I need to do my creative work while my brain is fresh.” I squished in short walks—a few times around the park, instead of longer strolls. My soul and my active dog languished. (In September the desert is still too hot for me for afternoon walks.) In the book, Get Your Life Back, by John Eldredge, he writes about the barometers in our lives that we use as indicators to let us know when our lives are too busy. For him it is riding his horse (a positive) or when he twitches when one more person asks him to do one more thing (a negative). For me—a positive barometer—is time for long walks with the dog. When I clip those walks to a short sprint and dash, I know I am too busy. “Life out there in the mad world remains what it is, spinning into greater frenzy, so we all need gentle reminders—signs, symptoms, barometers—that let us know if we’re living a sane life,” Eldredge writes, “healing the vessel God fills, creating opportunities for him to fill us.”
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