Grace, Rights, Privileges

Back to the falls. In the dry chilly atmosphere, mosquitoes nod from their bar stools, too numb to bite. The old maples along the stream are moss-covered enchantment. One leans far over the water, clinging to the eroded path with exposed gnarled roots, watched over closely by another concerned for its welfare, each knowing the demise of the other would bring it more light — a study in grace, a lesson for our time.

How lovely is this physical world, which comes to us through our senses. Even to begin to understand it is the glory of imagination. To be of it; to pass through it; to rise, fall, and rise again as part of its sure course and unfathomed purpose is a blessing and the height of good fortune. To be moss, rock, maple, and bubbling stream by turns; and even to be human, while humans still bide — what are our rights, but the shadows of these rare privileges?

August 11, 2020

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