A Hike to Hardy Creek

A Hike to Hardy Creek

This morning Jeff and I took a hike to Hardy Creek, up the Molalla River corridor.  Little did we know what wilderness beauty awaited us when we decided to move out here.  During Dutch’s morning nap, after a sweaty Tae Bo session with Billy Blanks, we took our water bottles and drove the short, several mile drive up the river, just up from my parents’ house in Molalla.  We parked at the Hardy Creek trailhead and did our short hike up to Hardy Creek.  It was so beautiful, the mid-morning sun bursting through the tree leaves, the air crisp and cool still, the only sounds that of our feet crunching on the path and the slight rustling of the breeze in the leaves.  When we reached the creek, we stood on the footbridge, in silence, just savoring the sound of the water, sounding so crisp – and somehow sounding icy cold, as if coldness could have a sound. 

I don’t know why it is that two people can sit down to talk and find nothing particularly pressing to discuss, and yet put those same two people on a hike, and they have no trouble finding fascinating topics to discuss.  Perhaps it’s because on a hike you can enjoy those familiar and comfortable silences, and your senses are awakened because of the fresh air, beauty, and distance from all that distracts and demands our attention.  Here, relishing the intoxicating stillness of nature, we’re reminded that we have souls and thoughts and senses.  We don’t just move about numbly in busy circles of tedious tasks, we engage with our thoughts and can take the time to glimpse into our souls.  Times like these are catalysts for spiritual renewal.  Stillness.  He leads me beside still waters and restores my soul.  Today He led me besides Hardy Creek and restored my soul.