The Stone

A cold, blue sky winter day.  Sharp wind.  But even from the warm shelter of my kitchen, I am drawn to step out.  To take a few moments out there, outside.  Reconnect.

Many years ago we built a small patio off the kitchen.  A nook bordered with hemlocks, a floor of stone tiles.  I have spent many hours right there, reading, sometimes writing, but mostly just being.

Today I throw on the topcoat and step into that sanctuary.  And as I sit and feel the wind and the sun, the cold and the warm, I look down.  And there it is.

The stone.  Created so long ago, taken from its birthplace, cut into these shapes and brought here.  Etched by the wind and ice, tinted by the sun and rain and the green moss that fills the channels between.  A majestic work of art that its creator, God, Nature, the One, is still crafting, still shaping.

And as I lift my head, I see the trees, the sky, the light and shadows, the tumbling brown leaves.  Beauty, perfection, peace.

Beneath our feet, just outside our door, in the woods, the mountains, or the city street- each precious vista, each precious moment.  Waiting for us.

The beauty of this sacred world.