Finding Selah by Kristen Kill

Author:Kristen Kill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsChristianPublishing
Published: 2017-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Practicing Selah

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.

JOHN MUIR, THE YOSEMITE

As spring began to blossom in the city, I followed the moss and the bright green vines like a treasure map. They led me to the reservoir. In the dusk, I approached and took in the blue beyond the waist-high iron fence. I began to walk, and then to run. My feet scuffed the gravel as the sun set behind the towers on my corner in strips of violet and tangerine. I pushed my body around those two miles while the yellow globes of the streetlights flickered on all over the city, reflecting in the surface of the water. Their tones turned honey and green in the blue and gray shadows that emerged beyond them in the twilight. I could hear the cadence of my breath, a whir and then a hush as I exhaled, soft and free. My feet fell in rhythm with the beat of the music in my headphones. In and out, with focused breath, inhaling the lush scent of rain, the perfume of the blooms lining the trail. As I breathed out, I could imagine I was soaring; although gravity’s grip kept me at a slow pace, the sweat came as refreshment. I was keenly aware of the tension of fighting to move, to take more ground with every pad of my foot, and as I did, the stress of the day subsided, the strain in my body relaxed.

There was a rhythm to these runs that was sanctuary. A selah interlude.

Other evenings I’d pedal my bike through the lanes of Central Park. The assigned lane for cyclists hugs the lane for horses, and one day, as carriages full of tourists passed me, my face brightened with the realization that I lived here; I could take in the wonder every night. I swerved through the turn where my Lael, just a year before, had flattened her body on the pavement, tired and overstretched, refusing to go another step. She’d plastered her cheek against the cement, exhausted. She was only four then and didn’t know she was in danger on the bike path, only that she could no longer lift her small legs. The weight of her body in the hot sun had become too much. As I kissed her cheeks and lifted her up onto my shoulders, I’d wondered if I could ever make this place home, or if my life here would ever be anything more than just trying to keep my people alive, actively thwarting danger and attempting to maintain our energy in this overwhelming city.

Now that I was out on the trail alone, I had time to take notice of a group of college students with yoga mats, a community cycling group, a woman jogging with her golden retriever. I felt a part of their winsome gathering. We were connected by our movement, each one of us fighting for activity that would refresh and strengthen us.

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