Evening in Missoula, the dance of the water at dusk.

A typical sequence of events on a Monday afternoon, walk to the mailbox, check e-mail, read a text, so ordinary.  We spend minutes and hours, living and doing these normal things.

Yet, there are days when each note plays out like a grand orchestra, conducted by the most brilliant of masters. The skin shivers, the breath quivers, the tiny forming eye wells, I have a friend who calls these secret messages. Yes, indeed.

And you consider how each piece played out, how the sender mailed the letter at a certain time, entrusting it to the system who took x amount of days to deliver it to you, and how a random errand meant you were the one to walk across the grass to the mailbox, when usually it’s him.  After catching your breath, another message is waiting for you, but not moments earlier, right now.  Because in the raw emotion of blessing and awe, these words transcend their usual power, once again taking your own limited breath, so you only can inhale love from the origin of love itself. And it rushes past body and into soul, leaving you amazed at the one who pens the story of our days.

We don’t always see how our actions touch others, how one small ripple shatters the smooth, glassy surface and prompts the dance of the water at dusk.  My lovely friend was drinking tea the other day, it was called Evening in Missoula.  If this dance had a name, the dance of the water at dusk, it would be Evening in Missoula. Lights once still flicker and sway extending past their origin, tiny currents lap the shore and wash over the stones, smoothing them, in contrast to the gritty sand.  One event sets this scene in motion, creating a masterpiece to behold, but no one dwells on the exact boat or breeze or rock that started it. 

In the same way, life can feel trivial, the stirrings we respond to, the encouragement and light we send, but perhaps it’s the best way, so we step out of view, letting the true masterpiece shine.

It’s magic really, and not the card trick kind, but something so much bigger than our wildest imagination, something that connects us all to each other and to the heavens.