Nourishment

This afternoon, I took the Alchemist out to our little summer hut behind our house. A summer hut here is a little straw roofed, gazebo type structure. There is a large one just outside the staff room for Chaminade, and it is where all the teachers sit in between their classes. Our house has a little summer hut in our backyard, behind our chicken house, a good 25 meters from the house. It is nicely secluded and looks out to the bush and some rolling hills that I would call mountains. It’s a beautiful spot. There was a bee flying about the summer hut, so I decided to sit on a stone bench just outside the summer hut. I soon laid down on the bench as I read. I had begun the book three days ago and had been enjoying it thoroughly. I was down to my last thirty pages and resolved to finish the book before dinner.

As I laid there reading, I could see the sun setting just beyond me. The colors of fallen leaves and their crunch under the feet of chickens surrounded me. The wind gently caressed me through the trees, and I soaked in the coolness of this day’s fading afternoon. As I read about Santiago’s conversation with the desert, and then the wind, and then the sun, and then the Creator, the sky around me played a harmonious melody of colors. The sky danced into dusk as my spirit danced to the story of the Alchemist.

It had been a long day. I had accomplished some work in the morning, shadowed a couple of classes in the afternoon, and spent some time socializing with the staff in the summer hut before going back home and eventually deciding to read. This sunset reading was perhaps the most nourishing thing I could have experienced, and I pray that every person has something like this experience that can fill their soul.

If you don’t have something like it, find it! Feed your spirit; if it starves, what else matters?