A Foggy Focus on Living Well

For the past few days, Olympia has been engulfed in fog. Early in the mornings, that fog has felt frozen and cold and walking in it stings.

It feels very much like a metaphor for grief. The grief that walks with me as I miss my Beloved. The grief of and for a country that has, frankly, lost its moral compass. Other griefs, too tender to name out loud, but whose very presence make it seem that having any sense of seeing a way forward is an impossible thing.

Whenever Bruce and I visited Washington D.C. we were always in awe of all of the monuments. And there are so many of them, including the striking monument to the life of Dr. King.

But on this day, when we remember MLK as a nation, we don’t talk about how magnificent that monument is. We talk about how meaningful his life was. Although, I am uncertain how one remembers and honors what he stands for and does not grieve the current days.

This is also true of those we love who have left us, dying before we were ready, not that we would ever have been ready. We don’t remember those things the world would name as signs of their success. We remember the substance of who they were. The nature of what lived within them. We remember whether they lifted others up or tore them down. We remember whether they had integrity, could be counted on to be or do exactly what they’d said they would be or do. We remember, if you will, the essence of who they were in the world.

One of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known was a woman named Mary. Mary was a wise, lovely, whip smart elder in a previous congregation, and who also served with me on staff for a time. Her essence, in my life and in my mind’s eye, is like a kaleidoscope of butterflies, dancing their way through the sky.

My Beloved’s essence is like an aperture in a camera. An aperture is the opening in a camera lens through which light passes. This impacts how images are seen; how light or dark, how crisp or soft, how close or far away in the depth of field. Bruce knew that what we see, whether in a person or an object or a moment, didn’t always need to be bright, crisp, and close. Sometimes the meaning is found in subtlety. And he was happy to sit in that space. He knew that what is really happening in a person or object or moment might actually be the thing that is in the background and that our task is to see it there. But he never insisted that you see the things he intended in his art or in his life, he invited you to it instead.

In our family we describe some photos that we are now taking as “Bruce worthy.” My daughter in love said recently that this is the highest compliment we pay.

And I want to live in a way that is Bruce worthy. That invites more softness, that is willing to open the aperture wide to let light in when we need more light. But who is also willing to trust that there is beauty in the soft edges of a foggy morning.

For this day, still engulfed in fog without and within, I share this from Dr. King:

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A shot of another foggy Olympia morning from Bruce's lens and heart.