This is my first weekend in town for a few weeks, and one of the changes I've noticed is in the church next door. It has adopted a new style of ministry. Last night and again this morning, it has been rocking its congregation's socks off. They've kept the volume low enough to avoid annoying neighbors (of which we're the closest), but loud enough to set me to musing on the difference between this choice of religious expression and that of their Master, whose preference seemed to run more towards a few weeks alone in the desert now and then. But then, He was something of a party guy, too, apparently happy not only to turn up at social functions but to help keep the wine barrel from running dry when that became an issue. So who knows what He would think of modern Christian worship practices?

For myself, I headed off this morning for a different sacred place, St. Edwards State Park, for a meditative walk in the woods. On this Sunday morning, the park was populated only by a few people, presumably the unchurched and those of different spiritual traditions, like me. When I pulled into the parking lot, a vanload of mountain bikers had just finished a ride. They were glowing, grinning, and happily speckled head to foot with mud. Starting my walk across the grounds of the old seminary, I realized that the three or four small groups of people I saw scattered around the lawn were students in a Mountaineers field trip practicing snow and glacier travel techniques. I'd been both student and instructor in that annual class.

The trail took me down through tall firs, cedars, and bigleaf maples towards the lake. Signs of spring were everywhere: new green growth and unfurling leaves, birds flitting through trees and calling to each other, flowering Indian plum and salmonberry, yellow flower stalks of Oregon grape slowly uncurling...Near the bottom of South Canyon trail, a congregation of skunk cabbage was visible through the pale green haze of new Indian plum leaves and white blossoms.

Then back up the steep South Ridge trail--for St. Edwards serves both as as gym and cathedral--I took a shortcut onto the grounds of Bastyr University for a visit to its medicinal herb garden. I'm a new member of the University's garden guild, and this was a chance to observe and study the dozens of species of herbs. Most had begun to wake up from their winter sleep, but a few from more southern climes, such as the Astragalus in the beds of Chinese herbs, hadn't yet wakened.

And then I cut back onto the shortcut trail into St. Edwards, now filling with picnicking families and a flock of very young Cub Scouts. As the last group of Mountaineers headed home, I pulled out onto the exit road behind them.