On the drive home once, from The Sea Ranch, I stopped at one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s on Meyer’s Grade, a tiny road up way above the Pacific Ocean, just a tad inland from Highway 1. If you look South from this spot, you can see the coast and the land, mingling and crashing together. Rocks and water, dancing. There’s often no one else ever up there, so it’s like the whole world is your own.
This time, it was summer and it was twilight. Instead of looking South that night, I looked North, to an old oak towering limbs, and the tree’s amazing darkened silhouette against the summer night sky. Nature was putting on another show, this tree was reminding me there was beauty in every piece of creation. Sure, the showy coast was the usual attention grabber, but here, this night, without a word or a sound, a tree stole the spotlight. A simple reminder that each of us just needs to be ourselves, in our own beauty, in our own way, and at our own time.
“We are called to be fearless people in a fearful world.” – Henry Nouwen