A Half Hour a Day

Grace…hard to define, but you know it when you feel it. It’s that “knowing.” That deep feeling of peace which grants us a moment’s respite from doubt, a split second of true unblemished contentment, a mere glimpse of the divine.

We feel it, but then as suddenly as it comes, it leaves and we’re left with a memory of the moment when we felt whole, hoping that it will descend upon us again. It cannot be forced, it cannot be replicated, it simply happens at unexpected moments.

I can remember several moments when Grace whispered.

The moment my son was laid upon my belly.

A moment, sitting on a rock on the shores of Lake George on a misty summer morning, the smell of campfire thick on my skin.

A moment, watching my daughter carrying my son down a leaf strewn path.

A moment, walking the virtually empty street in Saratoga in the early morning sunshine.

A moment, laying on a trampoline at Camp Wilton, looking up at the stars and feeling swallowed by the darkness.

Most moments of Grace are mere memories, captured only in my mind. But this moment, when I stepped off the path returning to the beach, with the lavender colors of the sky…catching sight of my family, with the vastness of the ocean beyond overwhelming me with gratitude and “knowing”…this moment I was fortunate enough to photograph

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” -Anne Lamott