Contentment

Last night on my way home from Bible Study the moon was as pretty as I have ever seen it. It was big and orange and just seemed to hang in the air. My husband and I spent some time sitting in the cold night air just looking and enjoying the beauty of it.

Relaxing and sitting on the porch last night was a great introduction into the type of day we would have today. Calm, quiet and a rare Iowa day where the wind doesn’t try pick you up and blow you away. The weatherman told us last night that we were supposed to be drizzly and rainy today.

When I woke up this morning I believed him as our world was bathed in a soft haze that seemed to promise that drizzly weather. I decided to take my walk early today due to that forecast. (I don’t have a great fondness for walking in the rain on a gravel road…the gravel tends to stick to your shoes, kick back up on your pants and invite itself into my house.)

As I walked it was wonderfully quiet out this morning. In the background there were distant sounds of truck and cars on the highway a couple miles away. The soft haze that bathed the landscape seemed to muffle most of the man made sounds. It pleased me no end, the way it wrapped itself around me as I walked.

There is a spot, a ways down the road where you can stand and look for miles in any direction. It was beautiful this morning in the way an old photo is beautiful with those warm sepia tones. The world rather resembled those old photographs this morning. I didn’t have my camera along, but I doubt I would have been able to capture the feeling the view gave.

The fields are still shades of brown, beige, and tan. Here and there are fields, green with a winter cover crop, but those are few and far between. I strolled past a neighbor’s field that he had seeded to oats this past week. It was wonderful to smell the freshly turned earth. I also smelled the whiff of hog buildings…but yes, this is Iowa.  Fortunately that smell was also faint this morning!

The haze softened all the edges of the landscape. The farm places that dot our landscape were softened and muted by the mist that hung heavy over the fields and farms. It seemed to take away all the sharp edges.

It even took away the sharp edges of life. The world seemed a softer, kinder place. The pace seemed slower in the hazy mist and gave off a feeling of contentment. It was a great time to just stand, look around and reflect on the beauty that was there…..if you only opened your eyes to it.

I slowed my pace on my way back home so I could revel in that feeling of contentment. It was such a gift, a blessing that seemed to be made just for me. In a world that sometimes seems to unravel, there is beauty wherever you look for it.

Sometimes it is good to slow down and find the beauty in an orange moon on a chilly night. It is good to find the beauty in a hazy day where the world seems smaller and the mist seems to wrap itself around you like a warm blanket. It is good to see the gift and the blessing that is ours……if we open our eyes.

“Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.”
― Lao Tzu