Photos, sometimes with Commentary, from a lay Catholic.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Foggy Morning in June

There, In the Clearing


It was foggy again this past Thursday morning so I tossed my camera into my bag as I left to drive to work. There weren't many others on the road at the time, which is one of the reasons I love mornings best. I passed this one favorite barn and it stood gracefully, dressed in all that misty beauty, but I kept driving. That wasn't the photo. I wasn't sure what *was*, but that wasn't it. Further along, as I rounded a curve I remembered a particular spot, and so I planned to take a photo there to see how the fog played with the clearing between some trees. As I approached the place and stopped (safely), I looked up and saw this.

One of the reasons I love fog is that it is such a great metaphor for faith. The fog limits my view and shrouds many of the very real and tangible elements in a space, but they are, nonetheless, truly there. I just can't perceive them well with my eyes. I suppose if I'd never seen those hidden objects or creatures before, I might assume they didn't exist at all. But they would be no less real either way.

Thursday morning, much of the scene was obscured, but standing in the center of my clearing was this deer, and a perfect metaphor himself.

Faith is not blind. Faith is informed, and acknowledges the limitations of our vision on any given day. I know there are things I can't see. This doesn't trouble me, but it makes me look harder, and listen better.

Insight works like this for me, too. When I have those sudden moments of clarity, I "see" something and understand. It was always knowable, always there, but I did not always perceive or understand it well. We, all of us, see only imperfectly, but we pray that one day, we will see more clearly, and understand more fully.

May our eyes be clear today.

Photo June 26, 2014.

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