and there was morning, 1/16/2017

The rain began about bedtime Saturday evening – it continued through the night and then off and on all day Sunday. It was a good rain for this New Mexico desert. This Monday morning – as dawn breaks – the air is crystal clear – looking to the west – just a few clouds are seen remaining from the storm.

There is just a small cloud that shrouds the top of my standalone, out west mountain that rises out of the high desert floor. You can see snow on the peak that the storm left. The edge of the 10^th fairway ends in an undeveloped field that separates it from the out of sight 18^th fairway and green. The clubhouse is seen sitting beyond, between the bare branched elm trees. Beyond the clubhouse, the front nine drops off toward the Rio Grande River and the river valley, which has a layer of mist covering it this crisp, clear-aired morning. The mist has an unusual bluish tint – the layer of mist is unusual in this dry climate. My thermometer says it’s 31 degrees outside as I write. The sunlit desert bluff seen above the mist defines the western edge of our river valley – the sun lights the bluff and the distant, lone mountain first in the early morning – then the sunlight moves back toward us as it rises above the mountains behind us. The shadows on the desert bluff shift continuously as the morning sun rises higher and higher. A small gaggle of Canadian Geese feed on the fairway grass just to the right of the camera view.

Yesterday evening as I was reading a book by Tim Keller before going to bed he quoted author, Isak Dinesen from her book Out of Africa:

“Pride is faith in the idea God had when he made us. A person who has grasped this is conscious of the idea and aspires to realize it. He does not aspire to happiness or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God’s idea for him. His success is the idea of God, successfully followed through, and he is in love with his destiny.”

Keller was writing about self-identity being adopted out of a faith that we are created with purpose. Dinesen uses a word bigger than I normally want to get my arms around when she talks about a life aimed toward a destiny. Still, aren’t we able to live out a Monday with feelings of vigor and anticipation and joy if we sense that those things we do have a meaning as part of an accomplishing of something bigger than ourselves. There is something about a clear-aired morning vista of a snow-covered mountain, framed by a sunlit desert bluff, above a mist covered river valley that gives a sense that life lived with words like faith and purpose and destiny can be embraced as the way to go – irrational? – maybe – but why else would a morning look this glorious, the morning after reading someone tell me I have a destiny, if it weren’t affirmation? Well – OK – maybe it’s not affirmation, but I like the feel of faith and purpose and destiny, regardless.