my Walden Pond

When I landed at a small private university in southwest lower Michigan.....I felt too old to be dealing with the drama of hanging out in the dorm with a bunch of freshmen. So, I would commune with classmates and we would rent some overpriced slum together.

But, one year, I had an offer I couldn't pass up. Some cousins had a fishing cottage on a small lake about 20 minutes from university. I could have it cheap and all to myself. So I took it. This winter has reminded me a great deal of the winter I spent in the cabin on the lake, which I referred to as "my Walden Pond", in 1994. It was awfully cold and there was one whole week that I was snowed in-couldn't even get into town.....anyone who knows southwest Michigan knows exactly what I'm talking about.

But the little cabin was great, nestled in with some great old maples and oaks-fall color was spectacular, the winter lent itself to contemplation and finally when spring broke....I'd open the windows and listen to the brush of the water on the sandy shore and feel the breeze come in off the lake. I called it my Walden Pond, partly because I had just read some of Thoreau's work, but also because it allowed me to grow so much, spiritually and intellectually, that I often look back at that period of time in my college life as my turning point in what I valued, and the principles that would ultimately drive me today.

I'm convinced we all need places of retreat in our lives......I'm working very hard at convincing my wife of this too. At the very least, we need to plan in retreats in our busy schedules to allow us to stop, breathe in, look around and see what we have been blessed with.