I stepped outside to a muted world, the kind of silence you get with a quiet snowfall. Everything was cloaked in a damp fog. It was one of the things I missed in Arizona. I crept quietly out to the swing and two ghost cats followed. All I could see of them was the white patches on their fur.

Two owls volleyed back and forth, their calls echoing through the insulated air. I thought of Merton when he says, “The most wonderful moment of the day is that when creation in its innocence asks permission to “be” once again, as it did on the first morning that ever was.”

I juggled coffee as Weigumina settled herself precariously on my lap, as the swing rocked silently back and forth. There is something so Holy about being awake when the world has yet to stir.

I hear the rumble on the tracks, the vibration in the earth before the conductor signals a train is passing through. And I wonder about the person sitting in that seat, what their hopes and dreams are. 

What do they think as they roar through town after town. Is there always just a little fear of who or what might be ahead on the tracks?

The birch trees across the yard stand like sentinels, witnesses to this new morning. A jet passes overhead. The world is beginning to wake and I think about all the lives on that plane. Each life representing a set of hopes, dreams, joys, fears. All wrapped up in a bundle of humanity.

The owls continue their conversation, one tone higher than the other. This one small beauty represents a grand design. There is so much more behind it. A sixteen year old student of astronomy just found another planet much bigger than our earth.

We have barely scraped the surface of God’s creation. And yet He has spoken. He has spoken of His love for us. We can know Him through the blueprint of His nature.