I found it at the used bookstore and couldn’t resist taking it off the shelf. It’s just the kind of book I would love to have in my library. And the collection of words was half-price!
Yes, I’m a book junkie and was in a “book house” feeding my addiction to hold, caress, and smell a print book. Even in the age of Kindle and ebooks, I love the feel and aroma of a print book, even an old book. I’ll never forget the wonderment I felt when I first saw my name on the spine of a print book.
On Monday I walked six miles with other aging walkers at my local climate controlled shopping mall. I am walking five to six miles a day since my retirement the end of August. I guess I have earned the title of mall walker.
It was fun watching the mature and motherly do their daily workout. They seemed to be the only two groups walking at the mall. I bet you can guess which group I belonged to.
Yes, I know walking is a lot of work. It took me two hours and twenty-five minutes to walk what I could run in thirty-six minutes only forty-one years ago when I was a US Army officer jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. When I gazed at my feet I thought of the nearly one-thousand dollar investment I had in my custom made prescription orthotics from the podiatrist that was inside my SAS walking shoes.
As I write working on a nonfiction and fiction book daily I know I already have more to do each day than there are hours in the day. Exercising was an afterthought. After a scare with my heart and by my cardiologist in July and August that was underlined by a recent survive I completed for author Joanna Penn on writers and the writer’s health, I am making exercise a major priority in my life.
The Apostle Paul taught in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (The Living Bible), “May the God of peace himself make you entirely pure and devoted to God; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept strong and blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again.” I’ve often imagined Jesus and his disciple talking and laughing as they walked along the dusty roads of Israel. I can see the disciples shaking their head trying to understand and Jesus laughing with a contagious laugh when they did not understand the master teacher’s parable and were begging for clarification.
I’m sure their walking helped them to relax and have a clear mind. My walking is doing the same for me. Yet, like the disciples, I sometimes have to ask for the Father to help me understand the teaching found in his holy word, the Bible.
Are you making time to exercise? As the verse says we need to keep our spirit, soul, and body strong. Exercise will help. And with a strong spirit, soul, and body you will have the clarity of thought to write and maybe one day see your name on the spine of a print book.
