Two summers ago I attended a month-long writer's residency in upstate Vermont. I met with Nancy Lee shortly before I left and she encouraged me to read this Psalm as I considered my time in retreat and where God might be leading me.

I decided to keep a daily journal, using a single verse from Psalm 139 to focus my thoughts and meditations for each day. I had been in Vermont for a week when I read verse seven.

The first few days of my residency were exhilarating as I met other writers and visual artists, sharing our work and discovering mutual interests. But the initial excitement of being away from home and work and all the mundane responsibilities of everyday life for a whole month was starting to wear off.

Actually, I was thinking mostly about my fear and anxiety of having nothing but my writing to focus on for an entire month.

In my journal I wrote, "This being here is turning into one of the most difficult things I've had to do in a long while. I realize that's the point, but I don't think it was possible for me to imagine what being here - having to face the reality, and possible failure, of my work - would be like."

For anyone who has not had the good fortune to visit Vermont, it's a lush, spectacular place. I got out my bike and rode up the short but significant hill above where I was staying to the campus of Johnson State College. At the top I could look out on the little working-class town of Johnson below, nestled into a valley in the Green Mountains.

I biked around some more and found a large, flat rock to stretch out on and was soon sunning myself like a lizard in the warm August sunshine.

I'd like to say that I had a miraculous encounter with God on that rock and that all of my fears and anxieties were dispersed to the winds which blew across the top of that hill.

But they weren't; they were still with me when I sat down to work later at my computer. I was, however, able to write in my journal that day, "Thankfully, God is here with me in my fear." And that was good enough.

Today's Gospel reading ends with this promise:

"Those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."