At year's end

The day dawns beautiful, a pink light behind snow covered trees. I am immediately awake and feel compelled to get out of bed and stand with Stephen on the back porch to enjoy the beauty together. He, undoubtedly, has already noticed the light, having watched it perhaps for some three hours before I rise. Still, he is moves onto the porch, standing in bare feet to experience the spectacle at my side.

I have been particularly thankful for his constant adoring love these past few days. There has been times, over the past 11 years, that I have felt it to be a bit cloying. Now it seems like a beacon -- so that no matter how lost I get, caught in the confusion of my desire to discern the future --to lead me back to a place where I am surrounded by simple and brilliant love. It is in that place where my strengths and frailties are held in a tender balance of awe.

I have been silent for weeks now, wondering what it is that makes people choose to live in a world where the odds of having things turn toward the light are constantly challenged by the darkness.

My dreams, these mornings of holiday sleeping, have been about a journey for which I know not where I am going and am always a bit unprepared for. In those moments between being awake and asleep, I am leaving behind things that I think that I need and starting off on a hike without sturdy shoes.

I don’t know where I am going. I only know that I am journeying.

Mostly, I understand that I must leave fear behind and the idea that I will accomplish anything, and embrace all that is tender and precious, fleeting like the morning light.