I discovered the Stone River the other day thanks to a tip from Anachoron, and it's pretty fantastic. Nari gave me the idea a few weeks ago of finding time for God outside of my room, and I have to say that it's been a highly successful practice for me. Although I have suffused my room with things to remind me of things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and well spoken of, my room is just not that much of a sanctuary. Well, it's a sanctuary for some things, but not for this.

My other God spots on campus are MemChu and the Fallen Caryatid, but the trouble with those is that people actually go to them, which means it's hard to do anything other than pray quietly, listen to music, and maybe murmur under your breath. The Fallen Caryatid is also not really appropriate as a general quiet time nexus.

But the Stone River, now, that's something else. Even though it's right next to Cantor, it's practically deserted (not entirely, but I'll take what I can get) and it's beautiful. Not just the river itself, but the whole area around it, replete with squirrels, birds, wild growing flowers, and shade trees. Especially with the weather as beautiful as it's been, it's been a fantastic place to go down in the river to pray (as it were).

I've noticed that over the past couple years I've begun to develop a spiritual appreciation of beauty. It's an interesting thing, since before I wasn't one of those people that feels drawn to God in the presence of beauty. Let me distinguish this from any sort of idea that God is beauty or that God is in some pantheistic sense in the beauty or that God is the feelings I get as a result of beauty. This is remembering the giver because of the gift, or remembering what sort of God it is who delights to delight his children with beautiful things.

Also, I love polkas. I really love polkas, and I think it's a shame there are so few of them at Jammix and at Friday Night Waltz.