Saturday, June 30, 2012

Goodness of Design


Robert Frost paints a stark picture of reality in his simple poem, “Design,” in which he looks at a spider web and the assorted victims, and wonders about the natural world feeding on itself.  He seems to say that death is woven into the world like the web of a spider:

What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

Then I spotted the ceramic plate on the wall.  It depicted spiritual gifts listed in Galatians 5: 22-23: 
        the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
        gentleness, and self-control.           

The ceramic plate designs them, portrays them beyond a list of ideas.  They all hang together, an intricate web designed to give life. Each one feeds on the other. 

Then I remembered that spider.  Is the design about death? Or, is the design about the sustaining of life, and a life that goes beyond each generation?  That’s a design woven into creation which designs life out of death from the Spirit into a life for the ages.  I love Frost’s poetry.  It’s always a good place to begin!  


Friday, June 29, 2012

The Mind's Eye

Do You Look or See?  

We are bombarded every day with thousands of images.  They roll past in our minds like a never-ending DVD.  Like the move "Groundhog Day," some can replay over and over. We look at these images--perhaps--but do we ever stop the DVD to really see?

I caught this artist painting Pemaquid Point.  You can see enough of the canvass to know that her painting is not realism, in any objective sense, but her interpretation from her Mind's Eye.  She has stopped the flow of images to capture the one that means the most to her--which of course is what she really sees. The artist is no causal on-looker--but sees into the heart of things. 

When I recall the miracles of Jesus, I am captivated by the blind who suddenly see.  The miracle is not that the can only" look at the world, but they have a deeper, spiritual "in-sight" into who they are and who Jesus is for them.  There's a miracle in the miracle.  More than sight is restored. 

What can we do to use our Mind's Eye to really see? The Eastern practice of mindfulness is to be alive in every moment.  Take an image.  Focus it. Be with it.  See what you really see in it.  Record your feelings and thoughts in a journal.  Allow the artistic eye to emerge in you. Perhaps that's when we begin to live to do more than look--but to really SEE! 

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Lov'in Homemade & Country!

Greene County, Tennessee

Somewhere off an I-75 Exit heading toward Bristol in East Tennessee is Sweet Lips Diner. Everything is homemade. Take a look at the sign--then the diner itself.  The next thunderstorm might take them out.  Isn't that what we love about anything rural? It's homemade, down to earth and closer to what makes us human.  Imagine seeing this sign and restaurant next to a mall! Everything there is pressed out of cookie-cutter plastics--all the same construction and signs as if painted by number. Seen one, seen them all.  Not at Sweet Lips Diner!  They are serving up authentic, genuine, the for-real--as well as some food.  What is it we really hunger for--and that's where we ought to pull off the road and feast. 

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Nothing Virtual in Reality (Really!)



            Portland Head Light, Maine

Is it just habit that when I arrive in Maine, I cannot pass by Portland head Light?  I'm not talking about the respite from 12 hours interstate driving to catch the view or smell the salt air.  It's the closest you can get to life--the living sea. You have to climb down the steep hillside, make your way over the slippery rocks, and go right out to the water's edge. Once there, the water comes for you--and it is alive! 

What a contrast with this virtual reality craze.  There's nothing virtual about life--engaged, grasped, diving in head first.  But, there's plenty of warning about virtual reality and our technology which we have always known, seldom heeded for convenience--to be there, but not really; to experience, not completely; ecstasy, but not quite. 

Frederick Franck nails it:
 
We have become addicted to merely looking at things and beings. The more we regress from seeing to looking at the world—through the ever-more-perfected machinery of viewfinders, TV tubes, VCRs, microscopes, stereoscopes—the less we see, the more numbed we become to the joy and the pain of being alive, and the further estranged we become from ourselves and all others. 



Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Now Ready to Live

I just could not resist this old feed barn in East Tennessee! I drove past it, the image stuck with me, and I circled back several miles to take pictures of it.  What was it that caught my eye?  The first take is a barn overtaken by age into deterioration.  Then, the close up spots the flowers, the openness that allows the structure to breathe and shelter the birds.  Flowers are now climbing its walls. The second take is that the old barn is now restructured and living in a new way.  Just when something outlives its purpose, another emerges into new life.  Some might even say that this new structure gives more life than before!  How often do we give up on life because it seems to have lost its purpose? But...that may be when it is ready to really live. 

Monday, June 25, 2012

Beholding Perfection

                             “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. 
                                      Excellence, I can reach for excellence, 
                                but perfection is God's business.” Michael J. Fox 
A wonderful insight from Michael J. Fox, no doubt spoken from his experience with MS.  The flower depicts and emotes perfection, right down to the water droplets. What happens when our imperfect lives touch on the perfection of nature?  How is it that we who are imperfect have this idea of perfection and know and feel it when we see it?  The Quakers love to say that God is at work in us perfecting us with his love. No matter how incapable we are in ourselves of perfection, when we share that love, it blooms in the world in a perfect way.  Others certainly know and recognize it.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Conversation of a Lifetime

  
What Do You Run For?
  Remember Chariots of Fire and the conversation between Eric Liddell and the Olympic Committee?  Liddell wouldn’t run on the Sabbath because he ran for the God of the Sabbath and the principle to rest in God’s honor.  Nobody on the committee gets it—expect the Duke of Sutherland.  If they had talked Liddell into running by disavowing his reason for being a runner—then they would have destroyed him as a runner.  Where does our passion for life come from?  When we align ourselves with it, as many athletes say, we get into the “zone” where we are at our best.  Life surges through us like an electrical current and everything fires at once.  Odds are that when life looses the get up and go, we’ve become separated from the real source of our lives.  

Lord Cadogan: Don't be impertinent, Liddell!

Eric Liddell: The impertinence lies, sir, with those who seek to influence a man to deny his beliefs!

Lord Cadogan: Hear, hear. In my day it was King first and God after.

Duke of Sutherland: Yes, and the War To End Wars bitterly proved your point!

Eric Liddell: God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern. And those rules say that the Sabbath is His. And I for one intend to keep it that way.

HRH Edward, Prince of Wales: There are times when we are asked to make sacrifices in the name of that loyalty. And without them our allegiance is worthless. As I see it, for you, this is such a time.

Eric Liddell: Sir, God knows I love my country. But I can't make that sacrifice.

Lord Cadogan: That's a matter for the committee!

Lord Birkenhead: We *are* the committee.

Duke of Sutherland: A sticky moment, George.

Lord Birkenhead: Thank God for Lindsay. I thought the lad had us beaten.

Duke of Sutherland: He did have us beaten, and thank God he did.

Lord Birkenhead: I don't quite follow you.

Duke of Sutherland: The "lad", as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself.

Lord Birkenhead: For his country's sake, yes.

Lord Birkenhead: No sake is worth that, Effie, least of all a guilty national pride.






Saturday, June 23, 2012

The Lesson of Trees

            The Lesson of Trees
I marvel at trees that knew just where to grow to get the best view of things. They don't have to move to see the best scenery. They tells us more than where to look.  They have alot to say about how to live.


Grace

Trees breathing
with arms lifted
toward the sky,
branches knowing
what is needed
from above
all things
to live.

Or is it not the tree,
But something above,
Descending to raise
In praise the arms
heavenward,
breathing divinity,
lifting creation
to Creator?

Effortless—
the breathing
the lifting,
and beckoning…
For all nature to
Take its one
breath of life,
sing its praise.

And for once, I
Stopped…
to catch my breath,
Wondering…
Why I work
at living,
not living
the Life,
of grace.





Friday, June 22, 2012

Diving into Life!

              Oh! How I envy the Lobster Fishers!

The lobster fishers come and go--and sometime, I just envy them because they get their hands on life. Out on the water, into each current, pulling life from the sea. No question about it--they truly engaged in life while making a living.  I fear the virtual reality stuff. Can there be any substitute for really living? We don't have to fish for lobster to dive into life. The whole point is to really experience living. Whatever you do, whoever you meet--really concentrate and focus on it. 

There's a dialogue from Good Will Hunting that nails this point.  Take your time to read it--imagine the voices of Matt Damon (Will) and Robin Williams (Sean):

Sean: Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?
Will: No.
Sean: You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.
Will: Why thank you.
Sean: It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.
Will: Nope.
Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right?
[Will nods]
Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.


Thursday, June 21, 2012

What Can You Really See?


The View from Mt. Batte, Camden, Maine 
and Curtis Lighthouse, found just on the
backside of the island on mid-page left.
What you can really see--of course--depends on where you are and the direction of where you are looking. Look at the island in the top picture, left side. Now go directly across the center of the picture to the small peninsula that sticks out in the water.  If you walk out there to the tip, you can see the Curtis Island Lighthouse guarding the mouth of Camden Harbor. No big deal--unless you happen to be in a fog.  And then, you really look for it and listen for its horn.  What we see also depends on what we are trying to see. How many people climb the summit of Mt. Batte, behold the great view, but don't know the lighthouse is even there. Many of the best things in life can be seen only after many trips over the same terrain--and by then, we know what to look for. 

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Eyes of the Heart

                  Open the Eyes of the Heart!
Oh, there's nothing quite like this Maine view...with the water stretching out endlessly beyond the islands.  Even if you know absolutely nothing about this particular porch in this special cottage, the view alone opens the inner eyes to see more clearly into your own life.  It's a wonderful relationship--seeing outwardly opens the eyes inwardly. 

Now let me tell you why the place is so special.  I grew up in this cottage and spent hours on this porch on Capitol Island, just off Boothbay Harbror, Maine. It's the first place I return to every year.  I stand on the porch, and looking out, I see more clearly within.  I hear the voices of parents and grandparents long past, of family pets darting this way and that, of the sheer magnitude of the ocean expanse, leading me for the first time to feel my inner spiritual call in my soul. 

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance ...Ephesians 1:18

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Forest Gump's Run


Marshall Point Lighthouse

Port Clyde, Maine













Do you remember that scene from Forest Gump when he ran coast to coast....and do you recognize this lighthouse which was filmed for the end of his East coast run?  Let me tell you the difference between watching the DVD and standing at the lighthouse--the salt air that fills your senses and clears your mind, the sound of waves crashing against rocks, the smell of algae and sea life with every breath, and the birds in unending chatter.  Life is truly lived when we don't run past it, but stop and engage it.

Monday, June 18, 2012

New Beginnings

Rockland Maine Wedding 

Remember the Carpenter's song....

We've only just begun to live
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we're on our way
We've only begun.


I spotted this couple down the seaside rocks with their photographer. They were balancing their the waters edge.  Once it was done, they began the long walk back up a rather steep hill.  I had to ask myself if this wasn't the real beginning of their life journey together--a balancing act and a steep climb.  I prayed quietly that they would always wear their wedding dress in their heart, carrying the blessing of the day with them.  I also knew as a photographer that everyone tries, but nobody can really take a picture of holy matrimony. 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

A Happy Father's Day!

What's Really Happy about Father's Day? 

I can tell you what makes me happiest as a father, hands down without second thoughts. It's looking over your shoulder and catching the joy of your child.

Will decided to join me for my Maine retreat.  It's a time of annual renewal, prayer, and intense writing.  One early morning, around 5am, he snuck down to the dock to fish.  In the morning sunrise, I saw his shadow, a double image in the water.  The joy was twofold to see him catch the special joy I have for fishing, but realizing he'd grown a whole new life, bigger than life itself.

This Father's Day 2012, we will celebrate a double day--as he expects his first child in August.  Then he shall truly know joy.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

New Day Dawn


 The Power of our Stories

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

 Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

From:  The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien 

Friday, June 15, 2012

The Clearer Days

Here's my rescue Lab Izzie who in unknown senior years can plop down anywhere.  But in her mind's eye I can see her circling fields with nose tracing lines of an enduring spirit always in youth and play.

I love Wendell Berry's poem, "The Clear Days," and the image of the dog for the owner and the discovery of what fills and fuels the heart.

The dogs of indecision
Cross and cross the field of vision.
A cloud, a buzzing fly
Distract the lover’s eye.
Until the heart has found
Its native piece of ground
The day withholds its light,
The eye must stray unlit.
The ground’s the body’s bride,
Who will not be denied.
Not until all is given
Comes the thought of heaven.
When the mind’s an empty room
The clear days come.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Secret

So, have we solved the secret of happiness?

"I believe so," he said.

Are you going to tell me?

"Yes. Ready?"

Ready.

"Be satisfied."

That's it?

"Be grateful."

That's it?

"For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you."

That's it?

He looked me in the eye. Then he sighed deeply.

"That's it.”


Mitch AlbomFrom his book: Have A Little Faith

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

What It Is All About



This is not just another day
in your life—
It is the one day given to you, today.
It’s given to you,
as a gift.
It is the only gift you have
right now.
The only appropriate response is
gratefulness.

If you do nothing else,
then cultivate
that response to this unique gift,
as if today
was the first or last day
in your life.
Then you will have spent this day
very well.

                                Louie Schwartzberg

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Living Fire!


Fatwood

Give me fatwood to fire
the wood wet from years
of careless tending,
The special gift of the tree
filled with flame,
the resin of the years that
sparks! ignites!
the enduring fires
to sear and seal the soul’s
secrets for living in flame,
retaining and releasing the
resin for the soul’s true light.

Monday, June 11, 2012

The Vision Thing

I encountered this outdoor photographer overlooking a bay in Maine. he introduced himself as "the wildlife guy" for papers, including the Boston Globe.  Talk about equipment! He had special carrying cases in his car's trunk just to transport it. He was a delightful fellow who gave me pointers as we stood there on the bridge.

Then I remembered TS Eliot:
 
"Happiness does not lie in what you have, or what you want, or what needs to be gotten rid of...Happiness is a different vision altogether."

That paraphrase comes from The Family Reunion, which I have re-read over and over. I also look at the world differently.  It's the inner eye of the heart that "feels the world" and sees beneath the surface of things. 


Greet the Dawn!

I chase sunrises!  Every one offers the unique gift of starting the day with freshness, as if the Creator said "Yes!" to a fresh start.  No matter how I feel pulling myself out of bed, I truly awake to the new day with a sunrise. 

The picture illustrates it.  Typical sunrise shots have bright balls of light that fill everything.  Not so in this picture.  You can see where night and day, darkness and light--end and begin.  It is as if we have a choice to make.  We can stay in the shadows and resist the light, or we can step forward, wake from sleep intentionally, and live with lustre of a truly new day that rises inside you. 

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Remember the Rocks

After years of passing the resevoir, I finally pulled the car over and just watched the water pour through the channel.  I remember hearing the water tumbling over rocks and smelling the foam.  It never occurred to me until later how the events of my life often race over me.  Sometimes I feel washed out.  Then I remember the rocks...the inner channel formed from the bedrock values of a lifetime. Circumstances change, life holds together!  In fact, I will never forget how the rocks in the channel for the resevoir were so polished and clear to reflect light.  Maybe the duress of life helps us to see what truly matters in our lives that remain time tested and true.  In A River Runs Through It, we learn that beneath the riverbed itself, there are rocks there, timeless pieces that hold us up as life runs through it.  Could it be that the timeless rocks were there from time immemorial in our genesis?

Saturday, June 9, 2012

The Thank You Bucket

I saw this bucket in a Liberty Mutual Ad, and it rings true with my experience--how about you?  Is it true that if you go through the day intentionally saying "thank you"--something changes inside, changes the day itself?  I think we are given a "thank you bucket" at our birth to return thanks to the Creator for the gift of our lives.  The great mystery and wonder of life is that no more how many "thank you's" we hand out, we never run out.  In fact, we soon learn that the bucket deepens.  We never run out!  I have experienced that a life of gratitude forms a foundation that can support the great burdens of life itself.  Through grief and heartache, those two simple words turn my spirit outward to the Spirit who gave me life. 

Friday, June 8, 2012


                                 Killer Bee or Honey Bee Grief?


                                                             Bees
                                                 
                                                  Sometimes it hurts…really hurts,
                                                  the grief that swarms like killer bees,
                                                  the winged warriors bred for torment,
                                                 without mercy, to sting long after
                                                  their victim dies. The harrowing of hell,
                                                  this daily dying after the death, with
                                                 wounds that keep wounding, and pain
                                                 that blinds the eye for seeing within;
                                                 the invisible work of hidden healing,
                                                 over time, that these were really honey bees,
                                                 to prepare the soul like a hive with combs,
                                                 to hold the hurt and transform the grief,
                                                 like the flower’s loss of nectar gathered
                                                 for honey, but with deeper promise,
                                                            the new life I could not see coming,
                                                            and have just now begun to taste. 




The Goodness of Grief



Bees
Sometimes it hurts…really hurts,
the grief that swarms like killer bees,
the winged warriors bred for torment,
without mercy, to sting long after
their victim dies, the harrowing of hell,
this daily dying after the death, with
wounds that keep wounding, and pain
that blinds the eye for seeing within,
the invisible work of hidden healing,
over time, that these were really honey bees,
to prepare the soul like a hive with combs,
to hold the hurt and transform the grief,
like the flower’s loss of nectar gathered
for honey, but of deeper promise,
the new life I could not see coming,
and have just now begun to taste.

The Fire of Conviction

I always thought the most remarkable part of the Moses' story was that he turned aside to see the miracle that the bush burned without being consumed. (Exodus 3) Then 35 years later I got the meaning of the story.  The point was more than going to see the miracle.  It was leaving with the miracle burning in him.  The miracle in the miracle!  It fired his conviction that God was with him regardless of the task. The real miracle was that Moses believed in the God of his message.  Imagine Moses the stammerer going to Pharoah--"let my people go!"  Or putting his toe in the water and believing God's word to get them to the other side.  I call it the Pentecost of the Hebrew story when tongues of fire convicted Moses of the One who sent him.  Now turn aside from your screen for this day.  Feel fire flame with each word.  The conviction of God given life that burns and does not consume. 


Thursday, June 7, 2012

First Meeting

Fox
I hunted the fox with my camera,
Crawling down to where he napped,
In sunshine and the canopy of grass.
Mother Nature dressed him so well
In crimson cape and black stockings.
How do you take a picture of such
Elegance and contentment that knows
How to rest with what comes naturally,
Rather than what we hunt and take?
He awoke and strolled over without fear,
to where I sat, happy to share the morning.
I woke up also and without camera,
Relished the chance meeting of souls.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Upright Rachel!

Upright Rachel

Faulkner would be proud of this girl,
Upright Rachel! Just stood up, right
before her parents who could not see
with alcohol in their eyes and walked,
into the world at age thirteen. Grown
Into a woman after the rolling pin
flattened her out like a cookie, but not
her will to make it. What thirty year-old,
Boasts GED, MRS and then divorce,
Yet stands right side up and goes on,
To do whatever it takes for three kids?
More than we admit …
Mother bear with hungry cubs understands,
How to believe in herself and the next feed.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

No Random Acts of Grace


The dory on the left was lifted from the picture on the right.  It illustrated the lone dory as the vessel made for the sea and the place of security to trust enough to sleep.  


Now look at the picture on the right. There are actually many vessels made for the sea that work just as well for others.  There is no single vessel for security in this life. Doesn't your choice of vessel begin with your trust? 

Monday, June 4, 2012

Give Me A Dory


Give me a dory, broad in the beam,
and I shall lie down and sleep,
without a care, trusting 
the vessel, believing 
in the sea, that they were made
for each other and me,
for this journey. 

Sunday, June 3, 2012

What do You REALLY See?

I walked down the staircase of a parking garage, and at the bottom of the stairs--I will never forget what I saw.  A young man lying on his stomach painting white lines between each black tile.  He was painting between tiles in the entire floor!  "This is incredible," I exclaimed, "Is this your job?"  Briefly glancing up, he said: "Yeah, been at this a week now."  "How can you do all this, is this your job," I asked.  "Sorta.  They pay me to do this. But I love doing it," as he remained focused on the floor.  "What do you love about it?" I wondered. ("They make you do this in boot camp," I really thought.) What he said surprised me. "I imagine how this floor will brighten everybody's day who never knew there was even a design here."  These stone shouted their design for this young man.  He saw it and brought it to life.  Then I thought to myself:  whatever was work and sheer drudgery for others was artistry for this young man.  He must have been aware of the design in himself to have found it in the floor.  What do you see in this person's work--drudgery or artistry? 

Saturday, June 2, 2012

                                                               
Reflecting the Authentic Life
Pemaquid Lighthouse, Maine          
The picture on the left is one of the most photographed in the nation.  For years, I hunted for the reflection pool at the water's edge, but it was up the rocks much closer to the lighthouse.The image jumped out of the pool at me!  However, the image on the right is rarely photographed. It pictures only the lighthouse reflection from the left, but inverted and  framed by the rocks. The reflection  is so clear that people mistake it for the actual picture of the lighthouse.  It is said that the authentic life has an internal integrity reflected on the outside.  Haven't we met people who's lives shout with authenticity because of their integrity? 

A Glass Darkly


For now we see in a glass, darkly, 
                                                                   but then we will see face to face. 
                                                                                I Corinthians 13

Friday, June 1, 2012

This may be the day that the Lord made, but you might doubt it standing in a coastal fog. It is thick enough to keep out the light.  It is thin enough to burn off in seconds and fill the day with sunshine. Is that true with us?  There are times when we stop being transparent, even to ourselves, and we cannot find the new day's light.  Our thoughts and feelings can drive us into black holes.  Each new day reminds us that light comes from outside us. The Quakers love to say that when you are ready to step into the light, the darkness drives away.  The day dawns for you.