I am finally sitting in front of my computer writing my blog on a very chilly October evening. I got home from after 11 p.m. tonight. We hosted an event this evening, and by the time we packed up and hauled everything back to the office it was already late. Then I stood talking with a handful of staff and students for an additional thirty minutes, brainstorming about the next events, making jokes in the midst of more serious conversations. I left when they started talking about some zombie apocalypse series they watch. Yep, time for me to roll.
I like driving on the Beltway after 10 p.m.–I usually breeze home in about 35 minutes. Even though I was tired, I knew I wouldn’t have to compete with the regular after 5 gridlock that I endure most days. Tonight as I was cruising on 495 just before the 270 split, I came around a big curve and there she was, hanging in the sky: a big, beautiful, buttermilk yellow third quarter moon. I love when that happens; it takes my breath away. I am grateful for that. I so love the beauty of the world around me, of the celestial as well as the terrestrial bodies that appear all around me. I love when the moon pops up out of nowhere and is suddenly right there in front of me, silent and beautiful. When I arrived home and stepped out of the car, I looked up into the sky at the pinprick constellations: Cassiopeia, the big dipper, others. I am in awe as the psalmist was when he wrote,
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”It has been a very long, but mostly good day. I am grateful for all that has transpired, the simple as well as the complicated, the exhausting and the exciting, the difficult and the easy. It was a mild ride on Mephistopheles the mechanical bull–nothing dramatic and crazy, whipping this way and that, just a simple toss here and there. I am going to close early so I can get to sleep; I’m half asleep here now as I type. Tonight as I prepare to take my rest I find my heart turning to pray for various people who have popped onto my radar: praying for their healing–physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, for their overall wellbeing, for financial concerns, for someone grieving the loss of a beloved family member. There’s always someone for whom I can be offering prayer. And I know that somewhere in the world, someone is praying for me. And for that I am most definitely grateful.
