Sunday Blessings

Do you ever do something on what seems like an impulse, but after it's over you feel that it was more than a whim? It was a Call.

Recently, I was writing early on a Sunday morning, which is typically my most productive writing time of the whole week, and I guard it jealously. Uncharacteristically for me, when I sat down to write I was fidgety and couldn't concentrate. I wanted to get outside and move around. I was getting nothing done sitting on the couch, so I humored myself and decided to go for an early morning walk.

The sun had not yet risen, but it was light enough that I wasn't afraid to venture out. I don't always take my camera with me when I go for walks. That day, I grabbed it at the last minute.

It was very windy. Usually I don't venture out too far when it's windy because I hate the feel of wind whipping around my face, and sometimes it gives me an earache. It was also high tide. I really hate to walk at high tide. For some reason, despite all the circumstances that would ordinarily cause me to give up on my walk, I couldn't make myself go back inside. I slogged through the thick wet sand at the dune line and decided at least I'd hang around for the sunrise.

What followed was nothing less than an experience of pure glory!

I don't know how long it lasted. Ten minutes? Fifteen? Certainly not more than 20 from the time I arrived on the beach until the sun had risen far enough that I could no longer photograph it directly. It's been a long time since I had a numinous experience, and I don't think this one quite made it to that level, but in a way it was better: Instead of my soul being lifted into some other realm of experience, Holiness itself reached down and and blessed me – right here in my everyday world.

I've was so caught up in the afterglow of that experience, I wasn't worth a damn at writing fiction for a week. Not to worry. I'm positive that experience will crop up in a story in the not-to-distant future.

Meredith