GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL

To get away from it all, Thoreau went to Walden...Thomas Merton climbed his seven story mountain...and Gandhi fasted. But in these days of 24/7 communication, it's harder to escape the angst of our everyday world.

If inner serenity is catching, perhaps the people we want to be around are the clergy, the poets, and Oprah Winfrey. Well, no, Oprah only packages serenity. The real deal is harder to find. And even harder to internalize.

Try the country roads of southern Illinois. Roads where the fragrance of the fresh earth hangs thick in the air. And where farmers can be found sitting and gossiping in small towns and farm equipment centers. If it's early spring they're waiting for the crops to seed. If it's summer they're waiting for the rains to come. If its fall, they're waiting for the harvest to arrive.

The instructive word is: Waiting.

Those who work with the land understand nature has its own rhythms and requirements. The noise from distant politicians and generals don't much affect them here. Here you don't talk much; you work and then you wait. It imposes the sort of stoicism that Alpha types far removed from the land have forgotten. If ever they knew it.

And so if one wants to catch the cadence of serenity, maybe hang around the toilers of the land for awhile. It doesn't mean they have no problems; but it usually does mean they've learned to match their problems with patience.