Minutiae

Much of the scenery around where I live (and especially where I visit when I'm outside the wire) is very drab. When it's really, really hot out, it's especially difficult even to want to try to find something that's not dull and uninteresting.

But of late, as the weather has been so beautiful, for the most part, it's been a delight to walk around and pay attention to the little things, to the details behind some of what otherwise might appear to be brown and not worth noticing.

Rains have filled the irrigation canals, and green vegetation is replacing the dried stalks, at least for what time remains before the temperature reaches "convection oven."

My 'idiopathic benign essential tremor' makes taking photographs a bit of a challenge, especially with the tiny camera I brought with me Down Range. That's pretty frustrating, but just one more example of a powerlessness. Fortunately, it's not one that leads to life-threatening unmanageability!

All that notwithstanding, what close-ups I can capture do give a sense of the beauty that can exist even in a place such as this.

I figure that as long as I'm able to stop and try to find the jewels that hide in plain sight, I'm probably in a pretty good spiritual place.

Not bad for being an old fart in a war zone, eh?

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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