Being Peace

Yesterday Beth posted about coming to a peaceful rest after turbulence. It evoked sharply for me the very first post of hers I read -- so much so that I had to go looking for it. After reading through the first year and a half of Cassandra Pages, I still haven't found it, and I think it must be a sort of composite memory, the distillation of what Beth's writing is for me, and I think for many of her readers.

The photograph I remember (and never found, on looking) was an interior, with late afternoon light slanting through the windows, and falling on a vase of flowers and a dozing cat; tiny sparks of sun-fired dust-motes hung in the quiet, dark room. The post was just the description of an ordinary day of peace.

Looking through all those posts I was staggered by the richness of it, of all the art and poetry and music and history, refracted through varied faiths and philosophies, that she made room for in her blog, and in her heart. There are not many blogs that could be taken in such a concentrated dosage and still yield just richness, richness and no surfeit.

And that someone so engaged in the suffering of the world offers so much peace -- while I'm grateful for it day by day -- I couldn't really see, without backing up to take a panoramic view as I have done today, what an accomplishment it reveals.