Taking Time to Notice

Lisa, Karin, and Sue on the "flotsam" beach at Cat Island in 1978. To get from my parents' house to the 5-mile white sand beach, we needed to wade across a narrow inlet seen below. When the tide was high, we carried our stuff over our heads.

Photo from our last trip, in 1984. After we return on May 22, I'll try to put up a couple of new photos from this visit. But I won't bore you endlessly. This is it for now.

Yesterday's paper carried the story of an unusual research study. Someone hired Joshua Bell, one of today's best violinists, to stand and play some of earth's sublimest music in the subway tunnel. As much as I love great music, I'm afraid I'd have been like hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers--they rushed right past the musician and on to catch their train for their very-important-next-task. How much we lose when we're always in a hurry! So now I'm trying to find the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but can't. I'm sure I'll quote it wrong, and I hope one of you will correct me, in which case I'll come back and fix this posting:

Earth's crowned with heaven,

And every common bush is afire with God,

But only those who turn aside take off their shoes.

The rest sit around

And eat blackberries.

(or was it pluck blackberries?)

Turning aside and taking off shoes, of course, comes from the amazing experience Moses had when he saw God in the bush that burned but was not consumed.

There are things to do and places to go today. I wouldn't want it otherwise. But I also claim unscheduled moments to turn aside, "take off my shoes," and see whatever "glory" is hiding just behind the transparent mask of the ordinary.

The numbness in my feet is receding a bit, I slept better last night, and I am so thankful for life and wellbeing today.

Love,

Carol