The woods are silent as I casually follow the deer tracks in the fresh snow, heading toward the afternoon sun which has become a big blazing ball quickly sinking over the tops of the trees. I wonder how long ago the deer was here, and I stop to look all around.
Starting again, I can feel the cold on my face, and my slow easy steps match the pace of my thoughts. These are not the paths I usually tread. My normal pathways are city streets, office corridors, and airport terminals; and my normal pace is much faster and busier.
A weekend away in the country offers some relief, quiet, and space to think. The Church of the Saviour's Dayspring Farm used to be way out of the city, but the sprawling suburban development of metropolitan Washington, D.C. now virtually surrounds the place. Sinister forms in the shape of town houses and condos have risen up on every border of the retreat center, poised and ready to pounce on the space and solitude. Bulldozers often attack the silence, and new shopping malls threaten to replace prayer and reflection with America's favorite recreational pastime.
But this place of retreat stands firm, almost as a modern parable of resistance to the ever-present encroachments at the boundaries of our lives that would swallow up the space for God and displace the center with the periphery. "Stay back! Keep your distance!" say the woods, the hills, and the fields to the signs of success and progress. "You can't intrude here; this place is for remembering what and who we must not forget lest we lose everything."
THE SNOW THAT SOFTLY receives the imprint of my footsteps alongside the deer's fell on Friday. The morning headlines spoke of "a mammoth Washington snowstorm that has shut down the federal government." "What a wonderful thing," I thought to myself as I was awakened by the radio news. I lay in bed thinking about all the things that wouldn't be happening in the nation's capital that day. For one day, at least, Congress couldn't pass more contra aid or cut child nutrition programs or vote money for chemical weapons.
If both the White House and the Congress were shut down, there would be less lying for a day and not so much arrogance. On this day, there wouldn't be as many deals made over lunch to further benefit those who already have all the benefits, or plans agreed to in private meetings to keep the public from learning or understanding the truth about something. Ambition, greed, and the abuse of power would be partially deterred for a day. I guess it was kind of like a required retreat day for the system.
I supposed that I should try to think of some good things that wouldn't happen that day because of the snow (lest anyone accuse me of having a negative attitude toward our government), but I couldn't. The people in my neighborhood who work in federal buildings, cleaning up after the powerful, would all get a day with pay at home with their families -- a pretty good deal. And the snow makes the city look so clean and beautiful. It's about the only time it does. Cleaning the streets isn't as important a financial priority as contra aid and chemical weapons, so we always look forward to the snow.
Here at Dayspring, it's even more beautiful when the trees and hills are snow-covered. Compared to all that now surrounds it, the retreat space is very small. But somehow the place helps put all that is around it into perspective. What you think about while walking through the woods, or what you remember about yourself while standing still to watch a winter sunset, or how you pray to God in the darkness of the night all seem more true to what is at the center of our lives and this world than all the distractions encroaching upon this little retreat center on every side.
I suppose a "snow emergency" in Washington, D.C. can help bring some perspective, too, although perspective is what this city so religiously avoids. But even here, maybe God sends the snow, in part, to help bring a little of that needed perspective. Perhaps the best proof of that is the joyful responses of the children of the city to a snow day in winter.
I think I'll take another walk in the morning before heading back home.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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