Alphabet Writing Series - B

(Written November, 2006)

b

bummel – n; stroll; leisurely journey

I came across bummel today in a list of unusual words that start with the letter b. Its origin is German and it is primarily known in English as being in the title of a book, Three Men on the Bummel, written in 1900 by British author Jerome K. Jerome. (What do you suppose his parents called him? Jermie?) It was a sequel to his very popular novel Three Men in a Boat. In Jerome’s book, one of the characters asks how the word bummel would be translated and the narrator replies:

“A ‘Bummel’,” I explained, “I should describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes; sometimes we can be spared for a few hours, and sometimes for few days. But long or short, but here or there, our thoughts are ever on the running of the sand. We nod and smile to many as we pass; with some we stop and talk awhile; and with a few we walk a little way. We have been much interested, and often a little tired. But on the whole we have had a pleasant time, and are sorry with ‘tis over.”

I am on the bummel… I am on a journey on this blue and green planet, twirling around a small star, whizzing through just one of billions of galaxies. I like that. “They were aliens and strangers on earth,” the author of Hebrews tells us of the ancients. I feel like an alien and stranger most of the time.

“To get back to the point from which one started.” King David said, “From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” I started where God formed me, cast upon Him, where He knit me together, where He was always my God. To meditate on that truth is astounding. To think of getting back to my beginning even more amazing.

I find myself sometimes on busy streets, sometimes in fields and lanes. Some seasons of life are so full it hardly seems like there is enough oxygen in the air to pull a full breath. Others seem to never end, saturated and heavy – like sucking molasses through a straw.

How long will my journey be? Will I be gone a few hours or a few days? Job said man’s days are determined and that God has decreed the number of his months and set limits he cannot exceed. But long or short, busy or slow, I try to keep my eyes on the running of the sand while on this bummel. My time is determined and my limits are set.

I will walk with some and I will talk with others. Some I will only have time to nod and smile as I pass. Oh, how the marvels of this earth have kept me much interested and how the trials have sometimes made me more than a little tired. I’m sure I will be sorry when it is over, when it is time to leave those I have walked and talked with while on my bummel. But oh, Lord, how much greater my joy will be when I get back from whence I began!

"What is time? The shadow on the dial, the
striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night,
summer and winter, months, years, centuries -- these are but
arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself.
Time is the Life of the soul."
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,American poet (1807-1882).