Look

Today I am grateful for our son Sam's safe arrival home from college. That arrival is about more than a smooth drive over the two-hundred mile stretch last evening. Semester one of freshman year is almost in the books, pardon the pun.

After pausing to STOP, now I need to take a moment to LOOK. Look at what is really there in front of me that I may usually just walk right by. Look at what is within me emotionally and cognitively at this time. Lean into an emotion instead of denying it. Let a thought go instead of spinning it into a knot. 

To look with fresh eyes and full attention is the key to shifting perspective. I don't need a perspective shift when I am reasonable, rational, and pleasantly immersed in the task or experience at hand. I need a perspective shift when denial and knots have shut me off, when the lightness of a moment has been buried in expectations and ego.

So I paused and looked at our new Christmas tree and the mellow lights throughout. We downsized to a smaller tree and kept it simple with a pre-lit one. We put it up early this year. Like many others, we are seeking steady sources of light in this time of dark uncertainty. 

I stopped. I looked. The play of lights. The frosted pine tips. The placement in our living room.

The light absorbed me and I absorbed it. 

I stopped. I looked. I felt hope.