Over the years I have developed the habit of taking long walks before the sun comes up so I can be alone. I want to catch the dawn and watch the city awaken to a new day slowly moving like caterpillar, cars crawling, trailing, crawling, cars, coming out of nowhere winding through the open avenues as the street lights begin to fade in the break of day. This is the only time I can talk to myself without someone noticing me if I’m some kind of a nut. I carry out this conversation with myself to relive and file away in my mind the past experiences, as well as the anxious anticipations, in a dialogue that seems to be monologue. I sometimes lose the sense of things around me though I feel the mechanical movement of shuffling feet, and hear the talks in my head. This exercise is incredibly wonderful because I can get lost from the oppressive complexity of things. This virtual isolation is a refuge, an escape, like curling up behind a hiding place to get away for a time from the pressure cooker we call civilized living. There is something transforming in this daily solitary walk. The self talking to self suddenly ceases, going deeper in outward silence, in which only the still small voice of the Almighty God, whispers, “BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. I WILL BE EXALTED AMONG THE NATIONS, I WILL BE EXALTED IN THE EARTH”(PSALM 46:10)
Of all creatures walking on the face of the earth man is the most fascinating. His physical attributes are superb, his thinking and reasoning processes are unsurpassed, his complex emotions immeasurable, and above all he alone talks to himself and wonders and asks the question, “Who am I”? “How did I come to be?” “Why am I here?” “What will I be?”
A long time ago, the Warrior King David looked up to the heavens, ruminated and asked, his Creator, “What is man that You are mindful of him? The son of man that you care for him?”(Psalm 8:4)
“What is man - What claim has one so weak, and frail, and short-lived, to be remembered by time? What is there in man that entitles him to so much notice? Why has God conferred on him so signal honor? Why has he placed him over the works of his hands? Why has he made so many arrangements for his comfort? Why has he done so much to save him? He is so insignificant his life is so much like a vapor, he so soon disappears, he is so sinful and polluted, that the question may well be asked, why such honor has been conferred on him, and why such a dominion over the world has been given him.”(Barnes Notes on the Bible)
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