BUsiness plan AND secret quote

I'm working on my 2018 business plan this morning before diving back into plotting Combat in the Cold (Elliot's fourth book), and I found a magical quote tucked in there... I think I wrote this, it sounds like me, must have been a day where there was plenty of coffee to be had, because today I'd be unable to string all of these sentences together in a coherent paragraph.

True spirituality exists in this world. It's beautiful and it's personal and it's private. It's how we cope and where we find our strength as humans. It's the source of our empathy and our sympathy for those around us. All of those little interactions throughout the day, all the beautiful things our hands are able to create, the words we write when we are inspired.... that is where you will find me. If others can go to a building and find all of that by repeating the same words over and over again each week, then more power to them. I find the confines of a house of religion and its doctrines confining and choose to find that thing called "god" elsewhere. It's in the faces of my children, in sunsets, in fall leaves. We have the power to be good people within each of us without worrying about following dusty books around. Unless dusty books are what make you happy.  (2012) 

I am not religious. The last thing I would ever want to do is get dressed up and go sit in a church with hundreds of other people while someone in the front does the mumbo-jumbo droning. Can't deal. Don't care what the message is... that is not how I take in meaningful information. It's just not. That is not how you reach my core, and as soon as I realized that many years ago, the entire world opened up.

We walk on Sunday mornings. Either along the banks of the Columbia River with sea gulls overhead, cormorants balanced on posts sticking out of the water, and sea lions barking in the new day somewhere down on the docks... or we walk at the school's track which is tucked into the edge of a forest full of song birds. If we're lucky, the sun will peek through the trees and cast shadows as our feet follow the track's faded lines... four times around... eight... ten times around... more....

The scents of the ocean, the river, the blackberries and alders -- I prefer these to candles, to incense, and especially the cologne and perfume that gag me whenever I find myself in a large enclosed room full of people.

I want the wind and sprinkles of rain, the chilliness of the foggy morning.

As I walk, I feel my leg muscles doing their job, and I'm thankful that at 50 years old, I have no pain, no issues with walking until my stomach tells me four miles is enough... time to find some breakfast.

That is my church. 

So on this very, very gray Tuesday morning, I will get back to updating this business plan, after I make some more coffee.