I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air.

The whole world is different. I noticed it first a week and a half ago when a family who is usually striving and stressful became peaceful and emitted a spirit of harmony when plucked out of their daily surroundings and transplanted in the beauty of Santa Barbara. And then I looked around me and saw gentility, strength, passion, excellence, all the traits of God demonstrated in people. The world began to glow that gorgeous gold just like it does at my favorite time of day. I felt Love. And then I realized - it's me. I am glowing, I am different. I trace it back just a few weeks to the day I spent pouring through old photos looking for one of my Mama to take away with me. That day I remembered my child self; "little-I" as E.E. Cummings would put it. I remember that little girl and I fell in love with her. And then I remembered that she is me and in that moment I learned to Love me. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." I know this. But if it is really true then, until I know how to love myself, how can I love my neighbor? I have fallen in love with my own truest self and since that moment I have been loving. Oh the glory of Love! How many songs are devoted to it? What a life, to live in Love. Leave Romance out. Perhaps Love really is all you need. "If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."

Echo the Sounds of Silence

My pen is silent. There is little more tantalizing than the length of a blank page. I long to fill it, ache really. A pen perches comfortably in my right hand, its tip rests on the smooth paper; yet I cannot write. Full heart and inspired mind ought to flow easily out through ready fingers and yet the words will not form. So many thoughts, so many fanciful imaginings. Perhaps I should keep them to myself and the depths of me know it. But that cannot be. I have to get it out! The satisfaction of a full page drives me to grab hold of at least one thought, just one. There is a song that says, "If I get it all down on paper its not longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to." I am going to pin down one thought today. I send up a prayer and go to it.