When things are not very clear

 You know how we all have those times when things are just not very clear.  There is too much "noise in our head" as one of my friends puts it. 

 Although there have been many times in my life when my vision lacked clarity, I think perhaps the most useful fog was my experience on St. Paul's Island, in the Bering Sea--literally and figuratively.  Due to the frequency of the fog, mist, rain, cloud cover, if one did not know what was in the immediate distance, one would not know what was in the immediate distance.  But somehow, even while the reality often was veiled in the fog, I would find clarity.  I believe it came from seeking, earnestly, to understand and to know and to use that understanding and knowing to be a more effective human being at that point in my life.

Sometimes, perhaps closer to 'home' both of those are more difficult for us to achieve.  Do you ever feel like you are warring factions of self?  That one part of you earnestly seeks to understand and know and use, in order to become a more effective human being in the only thing that matters: relationship with others.  And at the same time, one part of you just wants to raise your hands in surrender and kneel down with your hands behind your back, waiting for the handcuffs and unjust arrest and subsequent unjust punishment.

When those moments occur, my desire is to focus on not what is the lack of clarity, but what is clear.  When a student took the above photograph a few years ago, she labeled it "scary."  I do not know why she thought so when she sent it to me, but I think about it now in the midst of all that is transpiring, and agree.

Scary.  Things are obscured behind me, to the side of me, below me, above me.  I am on the edge with little separating me from the abyss.  I am not even looking where I am going.  And yet, there is a peace, a serenity.  It will be okay.  Others do not define my reality.  That is up to me.