Some old notes in an equally old notebook remind me of a day, long ago, when my son, who was then all of four, hiked with me through golden leaves to a hidden mountain lake. There we were left peacefully alone to sit and watch the wind breathe on the water and overhear the gossip chattered among squirrels and their neighbors.

We spoke, in that wonderfully unspoken way, my son and I. We shared our dreams in silence sitting by the mountain lake. We talked of the future, of what he would remember of a time when he was four and his dad was forty and they went for a hike on a brilliantly blue day. We prayed with our hearts that God would remind us of this holy time of father and son and we laughed without making a sound as we cherished the moment together.

That long ago morning, I noted that my devotions came from Elizabeth Yates’ A Book of Hours. She wrote..."In the present pace of life we often feel enslaved by the sweep and rush of time. Seconds move into minutes, minutes pass into hours, hours become days, and where has the time gone? But time is ours to use, to grow with, and when the hours are thought of separately there often seems to be more time in them."

I was susceptible to images of time that day, according to my notes. In recent days I had said the unique goodbye whispered by a parent watching a no longer child leave home for college and, of course, forever. For foolish reasons, that mountain spent day was the first day off in weeks. I stood with feet firmly planted on the ground and watched as time had raced by me. Until, by a hidden mountain lake, God reminded me of who I am and where I am rapidly heading.

He hugged me, my son did. In a gesture that was very briefly startling as we sat together and alone by the water. It was a warm reminder that angels often disguise themselves as children. We were held together by love and our rhythmic breathing, gracefully hypnotized. "Time and tide wait for no man," but occasionally they slow down to a crawl and you find yourself breathing a little easier, breathing with your son.