JANUARY 11, 2020

We have become attached to the herons out our window.  However, one morning recently my husband returned from his walk to say that there was a blue heron dead alongside the road. It had its own beauty where it lay, like ancient Chinese art.  We could not imagine the cause until less than twenty four hours later, our daughter-in-law reported that she had accidentally hit a low-lying blue heron on our country road, cracking her windshield.  No, she only hit the one, but two blue herons down in that short of time?  Truth is stranger than fiction.

In the slowness of our days, we also watch the sky scape, the beauty of the ebb and flow of brilliant white clouds in juxtaposition against the stormy dark ones; sometimes so heavy they leak rain.  Then there is the fat moon that rises above the bare trees making a glowing nightlight through our checkered curtain. 

Winter is a silent beauty. 

"Barn burt down--

Now I can see the moon."

Masahide, 1657-1723

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape--

the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.

Something waits beneath it;

the whole story doesn't show."

Andrew Wyeth

John Wesley wrote in his "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,"

"For, indeed, he 'prays without ceasing;' 

at all times the language of his heart is this:

'Unto thee is my mouth, though without a voice;

and my silence speaketh unto Thee.'" 

This is the silent communion of God in us, the hope of glory.

It is the buried seed waiting to burst forth.