Snow Geese on Arkansas Field

We drove and looked, and looked and drove.

Field after field.

No geese.

"I guess they've gone further South by now."

"I had so hoped to see the geese on this drive."

"Seems like they have been here in December before, but maybe I'm remembering November."

"I thought it was Christmas; there was that song....how long ago was that....?

maybe I was listening to Christmas music,

just earlier in the month,

on a separate trip."

Another field of water, but no geese.

No geese.

We sighed and accepted it, stopped looking out the windows,

returned our attention to each other and the conversation.

And then, a long row of trees, and beyond, another flat field.

And there they were.

Snow geese.

Hundreds? Thousands? How to know?

They humbled and rejoiced us with their numbers, their beauty, their very presence.

And as always, I remembered that other day, that other year.

The geese that appear year after year,

They might as well be angels.

Angels of a lesser order, of course, but messengers for sure.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow;

Look now, for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing

Oh, rest beside the weary road

And hear the angels sing.

Underwood

These trees live in Overton Park, the park I used to walk in on Friday mornings, back when I had more of a regular schedule. The deeper I got into writing my thesis, the less I was able to go there for those longer Friday morning walks. Whether it was true or just my anxiety saying so, it seemed I simply didn't have the time, so I took shorter walks at the closer-by Chickasaw Gardens park.

Now my Friday mornings have been taken by piano lessons, so I'm still not in a routine of walking at Overton. But I'm hoping to do it on another day.

It's hard to believe how much trouble I'm having getting into a new rhythm. After graduating, there was a trip to Texas in May, then a trip to Europe in June-July, then house guests in late July. All of these things were absolutely delightful--and they all meant no regular routine.

. . . . And the fact that I started writing this on October 11, and now it is the 25th, is evidence that I still haven't managed to get some things into a regular routine. But I'm back.

And I did make it back to Overton Park, one foggy day back near the end of August, when this picture was taken.

It felt a bit like a family reunion, in a way. Because I used to walk here nearly every single week, and usually walked the same trails, the trees, the curves of the path, the vines growing on the trees, the occasional flowers were all familiar and beloved in that way they become over time. I don't know if they had missed me, but I had missed them.

Surely I've written before that I spent a lot of time outside when I was growing up. When my family lived in town, my friend and I traipsed around in the small plot of swampy woods behind our house and the larger stretch of woods (with a creek!) across the street from her house.

When my family moved out of town, we were surrounded by woods before us and behind us. After I was too old for the imaginary adventures that involved creating fairytale houses from rocks and branches, turning an old stump into a witch's pot, and pretending to search for the creek that would take us to my friend's house if we just looked long enough, I still spent long stretches of time out there. Sometimes walking, sometimes climbing a tree, sometimes running on the road across from us.

I'm convinced that the woods are part of how I became the person I became. I owe no small measure of my sanity to them. It has been interesting to learn over time how much time spent in nature affects the development of our brains. I remember the first time I became aware that some people feel scared when they go in the woods; I was really surprised! For me, woods have the opposite effect, calming me, clearing my mind, focusing my attention--it doesn't matter if I'm in my home state of Arkansas, or here in Tennessee, or over in Europe. Being surrounded by trees automatically soothes my nerves. I think that's true for most people unless they've fed themselves with scary movies that interfere with the more natural response.

Recently I came across these words, and they are part of why I love the woods: "It is hard to go completely mad if you spend your free time being free and accepting the free bounties of the world round about . . .. Things, in their beautiful and imposing integrity, do not easily bend to lies."

When the world is crazy with lies--whether the lies of others in our lives, or the lies our own minds struggle to overcome inside of us, or the lies of the wider culture, or political lies--trees, vines, flowers, rocks, and dirt--oh, and wonderful green moss--with all the little creatures that thrive in the midst of them--these maintain their integrity. They quietly share their beauty. They offer themselves freely, no strings attached, no tricks to play.

And so it was wonderful to go back to Overton Park at the end of August. I've been able to go one other time since then.

And little by little I'm getting some rhythm back into my life. It's a lot like walking in the woods. I can only do it one step at a time. And I have to trust that even if I haven't been in this exact spot before, I can find my way, and meanwhile, there's lots of beauty all around under the woods.

(I really like that my first last name is Underwood.)

Pied Beauty and the Comfort of the Resurrection

That's the Bald Knob Bulldog above. In my mind it's the Bald Knob Bulldog Cafe', despite the sign calling it a restaurant. I'm not sure how that discrepancy came about, but I'm willing to bet that I'm older than that sign, so I'm guessing that it used to be called, and perhaps have a sign saying that it was, a cafe'. I just did a quick Google search and learned that other people have also searched the the Bulldog Cafe in Bald Knob, so I think it must have been called that at one time.

Anyway, I was there this evening. My daddy flew home today from a grand adventure that took him to Rome, Zagreb, Cakovec (where he stayed in our home for a couple of nights), and then a town called Cluj in Romania (where he taught English for several weeks), and to Hungary (where he visited friends made many years ago.) He came home today from all this travel in faraway places. His flight from Europe was delayed, causing him to miss his flight home last night. So he spent the night in the airport and arrived here with almost no sleep in 48 hours.

He amazed me by having the presence of mind and energy to want to go to the AT&T shop to be sure his Europe phone service was terminated, and to go by the truck dealer to schedule an oil change. I drove him on those errands, then we came home. He went out to his garden and picked tomatoes and eggplant and squash. Then we ate supper.

And then he brought up the idea of going to get a strawberry shortcake in Bald Knob. So we did it. Except I learned that they also make peach shortcakes, so I got peaches rather than strawberries. Which was a hard decision to make, because strawberries are wonderful and famous in these parts. But peaches are my favorite, so that's what I had.

A trip to the Bulldog was the perfect ending to a lovely day dedicated to coming to Arkansas. As soon as I crossed the Mississippi River, I felt that wonderful sense of freedom that comes when you see the green masses of trees, the wide open fields, the dirt and gravel roads wandering through them.

Today I was listening to lectures (a graduation gift from my thoughtful husband) on Gerard Manley Hopkins and his poetry as I drove, hearing Fr. Joseph Feeney read poems of Hopkins' Wales surroundings, the hills, the birds, the fields, the sky. And all around me were fields, sky, birds--and even lovely hills, once I came to Crowley's Ridge. It made the drive even more beautiful than usual.

And then I made a stop that made me love Arkansas even more. I wanted to get balloons as a little surprise when Daddy would arrive at his house. I was short on time, and I really wanted to avoid the crowds of WalMart if I could. So when I saw a little local florist sign in Bald Knob that said "more than flowers," I thought it was worth a try. You never know just what to expect when you go into a place like that in a small town (fewer than 3,000 people in 2010). It was actually a large-ish building for a florist, obviously a new business in an old building that used to house some other kind of activity, maybe a farm supply store, given the amount of farming in that area. It was large and fairly plain, except that the new owners had painted huge flowers on the outside of the building, giving it a whimsically charming homemade beauty. You can see a picture near the bottom of this website.

Hoping they had balloons, and that I could get some quickly, I walked in the door to see no one behind the counter. No doorbell rang, no voice called out, no one appeared. I had just begun to wonder if I should go back to the car when out of the back came a little brown-haired boy who hurried right over, looked up at me, and threw his arms around my legs to give me a hug, his head reaching a little above my knees!

I think he said something, but I don't remember what. I don't remember what I said, either. I just remember that he was terribly sweet, and even though I couldn't always understand what he said, he responded to my greetings and questions; and once I had learned that he was three years old and that his mom had gone to the store, he went back to where he had come from behind the counter, and out came a woman who I believe was his aunt.

This all took a very short time, less time than it has taken to write about it and probably less than it will take you to read it. I mention that so that no one can get the idea that he was neglected or unsupervised.  He clearly was not. He was just fast!

Happily I did order balloons that they did in fact have, and the whole time carried on a funny conversation with this sweet child, whose mother arrived during my few minutes there. When it was time to pay and go, he was in the back of the shop again. He obviously heard something I said about leaving, because he stopped talking with his mother and said, "Wait! I have to go give a hug!" And he ran out from behind the counter and hugged my legs again as before, this time looking up and blowing kisses at me. His mother and aunt gently "called him off," though of course I said it was absolutely fine with me, and that he was a sweetie pie (I think that's what I said, who knows?), and rather reluctantly, I left.

I feel sure I'll find a reason to stop there again.

Meanwhile I'm left pondering the beauty of a small town and of close circles in which a child is so loved and cared for and has no reason to feel fearful or suspicious of someone he has never seen before. Not only not fearful, but so full of love and generosity. Of course it's a messed up world, and he will learn prudent boundaries as he grows, I have no doubt. It was clear that the big people in his life love him and love life, and so I trust they will protect him appropriately.

Arkansas is a poor state, among the three poorest in the nation, according a study done two years ago. It has problems that come along with poverty. It has problems that come along with other things, too. While my drive home takes me through beautiful fields and crosses flowing rivers, it also means seeing abandoned houses, dying towns, and reminders of racial tension.

I was reading an article the other day about West Virginia, another of the three poorest states, and author John Mark Reynolds' take on some of the problems there. I couldn't help thinking about that article as I drove past some of the dying towns and wondered about the lives of the people there. I know that drugs are a problem in Arkansas, especially meth, from what I've read. Some people are desperate for meaning in their lives, and for love. Without those things, drugs become an easy choice, among the rich and the poor. And once drugs affect one person, they affect families, and then communities, and no one ever knows the full extent of the damage.

But there is beauty in this state. Incredible natural beauty. And today the beauty of a little boy who knows he is loved and cherished. And I imagine it's because of people in his life who also know that they are loved and cherished. And his little heart of love is evidence that they really believe what they have on a sign that was by the front door of the business. They haven't sold their birth right, to reference the West Virginia article. They've accepted it and are passing it on.

It's not the Memphis way of doing business, to put religious posters on the front window. It's not the big city way. It's not cool. It's probably not even allowed in some places. But who knows if having this sign on the window may not open the door to hope for some young teenage girls, leading to conversations and relationships that will save them from turning to drugs or bad relationships in search of love, or failing that, drugging numbness?

I think Hopkins would find poetry in this picture and in my afternoon encounter.  Death, disease, decay, drug addiction, dirt, and depression are as real in Arkansas as anywhere. Hopkins knew darkness and despair very well. But the Christian belief in resurrection, which he so powerfully describes in "That Nature is a Heracletean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection," is paramount in his poetry and in his life. And if I am to believe that I am, ultimately, "immortal diamond," I must have opportunities and the ability to see that hope. "Across my foundering deck shone a beacon, an eternal beam." People need a beacon shining. They need to see that beam.

I hope they keep that poster there. I hope it blesses girls who need to see it. And I hope their little boy becomes a grown man who loves with passion and prudence because he knows that he is cherished, that Christ became what he is, and he will be what Christ is, and that this life is only part of a Life we can't begin to imagine. You can handle a whole lot of what life gives you when you know that.

Abide with Me

We sang this hymn quite often in the church where I grew up. We also sang it in a small women's ensemble during my college years. I've always thought it was beautiful, and it has been coming to mind the past few days since my mother's death on Monday, June 27.

We did not sing it at her funeral, but the reason it keeps coming to my mind is because of its references to the sky and the sense of connection between the human creature contemplating death to the creation that is fallen in change and decay, but also responsive in a sympathetic way to the event of life moving through death to life again.

The photos below were taken on the day of her death and then this morning (Friday).

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day,
Earth's joys grow dim, its sorrows pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see.
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour.
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who like thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless--
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

About 5:45 Monday morning. I had not slept much all night and was very hungry. I left my younger brother in the hospital room and went to get something to eat and try to sleep a little before coming back. On the way I saw the sun starting to rise and stopped to take a picture. My mom died at 6:15, shortly after sunrise.

This is from inside the hospital, while I was making phone calls after her death.

We had lunch later at my sister's house, and as my dad, older brother, and I were driving back to my dad's house, we exited the tree-ey neighborhood to this unexpectedly beautiful sight. That is the hospital at the end of the rainbow.

I was driving the car, and my brother was taking pictures. We kept trying to slow down, or stop, or back up, to get good shots of it. And then it turned out he was able to capture the whole rainbow from my dad's own driveway.

Sunset on the evening of her death, from Daddy's back porch.

This morning.

"Heaven's morning breaks...." I could hardly believe I got to see this in the ten minutes or so I was out there today. The rest of the day has just been blue, blue sky with almost no clouds, but this morning it was a cloudscape perfect for the morning sun breaking through to shine on her grave.

Mama always loved nature. When she was older she had to stay in more because of skin cancer concerns and general health issues, but in earlier years she went to Camp Wyldewood thirteen years as both camper and counselor. She spent a summer at Yellowstone Park. She planted all kinds of flowers, digging them up from the side of the road or transplanting shoots given her by friends or her mother. She used to take us fishing (though my sister and I used it as reading time.) She loved to go for rides in the country. We had dogs and cats and chickens and rabbits and goats and I don't know what all when we were growing up.

So it just seems fitting that nature would give us these beautiful moments in the days around her death. Through cloud and sunshine, she is abiding with the the One who changeth not in the mystery of this time, and in the weightlessness of finally resting in peace.

Friendship with Francis

Recently I was invited to write for a series on The Three Prayers, the blog of a friend of mine. She is inviting guest writers to write about saints of the Roman Catholic Church, or about the influence those people have had on the lives of the authors.

My post falls into that second category. It's not so much about the life of Francis as it is about how the life of Francis of Assisi has been a blessing in my own life, and you are welcome to read it over on Janet's blog.

Infinity in My Lap

"Infinity kind of...drops into one's lap."

That's Stratford Caldecott trying to describe to Ken Myers those moments when we are struck with the infinite nature of the cosmos, and how we are a part of it and are touched by it. How children seem to experience those moments more frequently, and how we as adults can learn to be more open to them.

I was listening to the interview this past Wednesday while driving from Memphis to my home town in Arkansas. This time of year the fields are piercingly green as the early evening light does its magic with their chlorophyll.

At certain moments I felt infinity dropping into my lap, perhaps bumping on the steering wheel as it came. It was early evening. The sun was still high enough to not be right in my eyes, but it was dropping, and it shone on the fields and through the trees at an angle that just made them magical. I wanted so much to stop and take pictures! But I knew if I did, I risked letting the sun get to the point that I would not be able to see, because I was driving almost due west the entire trip, and if that evening sun got any lower, I would be blinded.

So I kept driving, marvelling at the beauty. When I came near the White River and saw the red clover growing thickly all along the sides of the road, it was all I could do to just keep driving.

I was going this way partly to visit family, and also because of a professional seminar on "The Secrets to Using Art as a Healing Process," by Lisa Mitchell.  As soon as I saw the brochure about it, I knew I wanted to go.

So you probably won't be surprised at one of my pieces of art done on the following day. The instructions were simply to draw a square. Then to fill it with color, line, and texture. And then to take something from inside the square and move it outside the square. Here's what showed up on my pice of paper. . . .

The words came to me from the recesses of my mind, from a song my chorus sang in high school. If I can get it to work, you can listen to it here:

Dvadeset i Tri na Dvadeset i Treći (Twenty-Three on the Twenty-Third)

We interrupt this Lent for a special announcement . . . Twenty-three years ago today, we were married. Like today, it was a bit overcast and windy. (In fact, we have a hilarious picture of my veil blowing in the wind at one point.) Unlike today, we were twenty-three years younger and had little idea what lay ahead.

I remember hearing before I married that every wedding has something significant go wrong, that it would be bad luck if you didn't.

Well, our expectant-mother cake-maker was ordered on strict bed rest the day before the wedding. Our music director's child got chickenpox a few days before, and his wife was in cancer treatment and couldn't be exposed to it. And during the ceremony itself, one of the groomsmen fainted, nearly taking down with him all the ivy connecting the arch and flowers.

So according to the conventional wisdom, we should have been inoculated against bad luck. On the other hand, a dear woman made a wonderfully delicous cake at the last minute--and still came to the wedding despite the lack of sleep. And the music director was able to find childcare and direct the choir, which meant the world to me, since he had been my chorus director and beloved Bible teacher. And another groomsman caught the fainting one, saving the wedding from disaster; they even revived him before the end of "Lord, Make Me an Instrument" came, most people didn't even know it ever happened, as they had heads bowed and eyes closed for that prayer/song.

So, who knows, maybe all those last-minute "saves" undid our inoculation.

Of course, it wasn't "bad luck" that caused the war in former Yugoslavia. It was much more complicated than that. It may have been coincidence that we had bought our tickets to return there the very week that the war started. And it wasn't "luck" that we came from different cultures and spoke different languages; it was very much a choice we made to marry, knowing we came from different worlds. So I wouldn't say we had bad luck. But we did have a very tough start.

I've often looked back and wondered how many people choose this hymn as wedding music. Certainly today I don't hear it at weddings, and I don't know if I ever did growing up. But I knew I wanted it at ours, and Drazen agreed to it. We really were not expecting the war, but I already knew that moving so far away from home would be hard. And we knew that neither of us had "ease" or "idleness" on our list of hopes and dreams.

Father, hear the prayer we offer,
Nor for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength, that we may ever
Live our lives courageously.

Not forever by still waters
Would we idly, quiet stay,
But would smite the living fountains
From the rocks along our way.

Be our strength in hours of weakness,
In our wand'rings be our guide;
Through endeavor, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.

Twenty-three years later, by the grace of God, here we are. And it is by the grace of God.  He heard our prayer, and hears our prayers, and has given strength and guidance and many other things needed along the way.

And, I must add, I married a patient and persevering man. I don't think I'm an easy person for an engineer to live with; I know I'm not, for him. It's almost laughable to me, now a marriage therapist, to look at our scores on various personality tests. We are both extreme in most areas, and we are opposites in our extremities--except for the "intuitive" part on the Meyer-Briggs. So maybe intuitively we both knew we could make it, even with all the reasons we might not. Whatever the case, I'm thankful that he is who he is, and that he loves me as I am.

We didn't have these words at our wedding; I just noticed today that they are a part of the hymn based on St. Francis' Canticle of the Creatures--

And all ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part.
O sing ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care!

But we did have other verses sung, and thanks to God's faithfulness in all our wanderings, it seems a good way to end this writing about our anniversary.

All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!....

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship him in humbleness,
O praise him! Alleluia!
O praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise Him, O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Asparagus Dressed in Dew

I was standing at the counter, taking celery out of its bag to put it in a storage box. At some point between taking it in my hand and cutting the tips off, I had a flashback to life at an earlier point in time, a vivid sensory memory of asparagus growing in my daddy's garden and of seeing it in the earlier part of the morning while it was covered in dew.

It has been many years since those memories could have been made, but I remembered with great depth of feeling how beautiful it was, how I loved to get out there early enough to see the asparagus in the morning. How it seemed like an enchanted time and place to be there with it, to know that only now and here could that beauty be encountered. An hour earlier it would have been hidden in darkness. A half hour later it would be gone.

Sort of a funny thing, to come almost out of nowhere like that. Celery is green and long, so I suppose the connection makes some sense. But what is stranger to me is that I haven't seen asparagus growing for over thirty years, I couldn't even remember just what it looked like. Green and delicate were the impressions that came to mind--and feathery, airy. Someting about spider webs. And something like magical.

I remember that when I was growing up in smalltown and rural Arkansas, I would sometimes think, as I helped weed the garden or pick its produce, about what I would grow in my garden when I grew up. I don't think it occurred to me then that I might not even have a garden, or that there were people who didn't. It was just, "What will I have in my garden someday?"

And I knew asparagus would have to be in it. Even though I also knew that Daddy said it never did very well and probably needed sandier soil or a cooler climate, or something like that. I remember thinking that it didn't matter at all to me whether or not the asparagus could be eaten. I wanted to grow it just so I could come in the mornings and see it in the pale light with the dew on it.

As I stood there stringing and chopping the celery that didn't go into the box, I thought these things, and I wondered if I were simply enchanted by the asparagus because of my youth and tendency toward romanticism, or if they would still strike as so beautiful. (Ha, I said "they…." in Italian, as with spaghetti, "asparagi" are plural….I once had a pizza in Sorrento, pizza agli asparagi….)

I wondered, could I possibly find pictures of asparagus with dew on them? Because I certainly have no way to take any such pictures.

I went to the search engine and entered "asparagus with dew"--and would you believe I found pictures. Even a blogpost. You can see it here, and I strongly encourage you to, especially if you have never seen dew on asparagus, or if you have and like me have not seen it again for many years.

Apparently I am not the only one to have marveled at this phenomenon. I'm sure this blogger and I are not alone, either. Anyone who has been out early enough to see it could hardly help noticing how beautiful it is.

Time prevents a long discussion on what beauty is, and how it comes to be that the world is so full of beauty, and that we human beings are cognizant of it, that we remember something for decades simply because it struck us with its beauty. I think these are fascinating things to think about. And important.

But for now I just encourage you to look at the pictures and enjoy the beauty of asparagus in dew.

(And I feel I should add re. the paragraph above, that I did not help my dad nearly as much as I should have in the garden!)

Letters of Love (though not exactly Love Letters)

 

Eleven years ago today the writer of these letters, and I assume the licker of these stamps, left this life for the next phase of his life's experience of Love.

I don't know what he would think or say if he knew I would be writing about him on my blog, but I think he might say that as long as I chose my words carefully, included no dangling participles, and allowed my emotion to cool before writing so that my words were recollected in tranquility, then I would have his blessing.

 

 

 

 

He was my high school English teacher, but most of the letters I have from him were written while I was in college and he was in the student role, working on a doctorate after many years of teaching high school, getting ready to move on to teaching college. (I thought it was neat that my favorite number, 26, was part of his address at Ole Miss. He would likely tease me for using the word "neat.")

 

 

 

My asking about something from a Frost poem about how difficult life could be winds up with his response, "All in all, I would say, there is a pretty good balance of agony and ecstasy. It takes both to make us wonderful people, you know." He was right.

 

 

 

 

He did "moan" in his letters about both his workload and the worldviews of some of his professors and how he felt their impoverished ideas did little justice to the literature he was studying. At some point in a later letter, however, he gave me permission to stop feeling sorry for him, that he was adjusting and would make it.

 

 

He writes in response to my comment that music can be so moving (referring to Barber's "Adagio for Strings"), that music often brings him to tears. Able to sing with one of the choirs at Ole Miss, he participated in a concert in Avery Fisher Hall that he wrote about more than once. Here he writes out some of the text of the "Prayers of Kierkegaard" set to music by Samuel Barber. Many years later, after his death, my own chorus sang the piece, so it will always remind me of him. I appreciated it much more as an adult than I could as a college freshman reading his letter.

 

In response to my suggestion of a Trivial Pursuit party, which he okayed if it were a small enough group, he writes, "I like my friendships deep, not wide." I have a perfect dozen of his letters, all at least two handwritten pages, often more, some typed and therefore even longer. At the time I was receiving these letters, I treasured them because they were from him, and they brought hope and wisdom into my life, but I didn't find it unusual that he spent time writing to me.

 

These days, working on a doctorate myself, I look at these letters with a sense of awe, knowing the sacrifice of time he took to sit and read letters from a former student and respond to them. It's clear he enjoyed writing about things, but it's also clearer to me now how much he meant the "Love" in "Love, Ray A. Wright." And I appreciate being someone he included in his not wide, but deep, circle of friends. One of the many blessings-beyond-measure in my little life.

 

(And we did have that Trivial Pursuit party, about fifteen years after the letter--just him, his wife, and me. I think we kept it small enough.)

 

 

 

 

 

Morning Has Broken

Many mornings I start the day with a walk.

This morning was no exception--except for the major exception that I am in Eureka Springs, and my walk took me from the top of an Ozark "mountain" down a long dirt-gravel road into a valley. I was the only person I could see the whole time I was out, except for the man on his porch that I saw on my way back up out at the top of the road.

So for an hour or more I walked around and saw no one else, heard no one else. Only birds, the scampering of a squirrel now and then, the insect sounds. Oh, even a crow cawing at one point. "Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird....."

How to describe the light coming through the air as it was when I took this photo? I felt like Saul on the road to Damascus, or perhaps a character in a Lord of the Rings novel. The light was alive. The morning was alive. I was alive.

Reminds me of a Hopkins poem, one of his better known. One I resonate with so much, because I live in a city and am often reminded of how "all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil...." It is beautiful to be in a place where you can forget that for a while.

And morning is always a reminder that God is at work, sustaining what is, and also making things new.

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
     World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 --Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"