{"id":1803,"date":"2024-05-08T12:21:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T16:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/?p=1803"},"modified":"2024-05-08T12:21:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T16:21:06","slug":"my-son-the-deer-whisperer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/2024\/05\/08\/my-son-the-deer-whisperer\/","title":{"rendered":"My Son the Deer Whisperer"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were staying with friends at an Airbnb in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania recently. It was a great weekend catching up with friends. We spent the weekend enjoying good food, deep conversations, board games, and time outside enjoying nature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While we were there, I learned something new about my son: he\u2019s a deer whisperer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every day, numerous deer would walk up to the house. At times, it was one or two while other times we counted upwards of 15. The first time a deer approached us, we were all sitting on the back porch. We all stopped talking and simply watched. My son, though, immediately hopped down and made his way into the yard. He then completely froze. As the deer inched closer, he would, in almost slow motion, inch closer to the deer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, he was close enough to reach out and touch it. Instead, my son and this young deer basically stared each other in the eyes for a couple of minutes. For a moment, though, I had a thought that maybe my son would just hop on the deer\u2019s back and they\u2019d ride off into the woods for a day of adventures.<\/span><\/p>\n

The deer eventually decided to leave and, as it did so, my son quickly went back to playing as if nothing had happened. Throughout the weekend, the deer kept visiting. Each time, my son would drop everything he was doing and did his best to get as close as possible to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not entirely sure of the spiritual lessons from this story. However, I do think that there is something about dropping what we are doing to face the ineffable, that which brings us awe, or the present moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps it is a sunset, a cloud formation, or the view of Sharp Top Mountain. Maybe it\u2019s our children laughing, our pet playing, or a friend telling a great story. Maybe it\u2019s an emotion, such as deep love or grief welling up inside of us, a tear making its way to the surface, or a longing for connection with another soul.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My hope for you this week is that you find a moment to stop what you\u2019re doing, focus on the beauty which is before you, and enjoy the moment. Maybe that will help all of us become whisperers for the sacredness in every moment. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were staying with friends at an Airbnb in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania recently. It was a great weekend catching up with friends. We spent the weekend enjoying good food, deep conversations, board games, and time outside enjoying nature.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n

My Son the Deer Whisperer<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nathan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1QIf6-t5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}