This morning, as I was fixing breakfast, John motioned me to the window.  Across our backyard, there was a majestic doe walking.  Following back a ways was her fawn.  Suddenly, fawn kicked up his back legs and started prancing and dancing in our yard!  The fawn kicked and bucked and wiggled across the yard in total abandon. It was a cross between "Dance like no one is watching" and Bambi going out into the meadow for the first time!  Then, about 10:00, again I was at the kitchen window, and there was a hummingbird zooming around the Butterfly Bush, landing and eating, then zooming again!  We have had many butterflies this season, but had not seen a hummingbird until today.
     Not that everyday isn't, but this morning was truly a gift from God.  A gift I needed for my spirit.  These gifts, the simple gifts of nature sharing its life with me were gifts that gave me hope, especially as the news was on in the background.  These days it is hard to try and be informed about the world and not get sucked into the vortex of politics.  It is hard to sit and watch violence in a beautiful city which is 90 minutes from my house, knowing that I was planning on being there, knowing that my friends were there in the middle of the fray, and I was praying for their safety as well as the safety of all who were there. It is a struggle that as a female in 2017, I hear the voice which cries that 100 year old statutes are offensive and not necessary, but the historian in me doesn't want them destroyed and doesn't want history rewritten.  As a people, since Old Testament times, we have sought ways to put down another class or race for our own gain; we have pushed and demanded our way because we feel that as white Christians it is the right way.  We have enslaved people, we have disrespected people due to their color, their sex or their sexual orientation.  We need to remember these not so proud moments in our history and learn from them.  We must correct our ways and set a pattern for the next generation to be better than we are.  If we don't, then we are no better than the generations past.   
      With those thoughts on my mind, and they have been mulling around in my brain for a long time, today I was gifted with witnessing beauty and nature at its finest and rejoicing.  Such a gift doesn't cause me to downplay the violence and horror in the world, but it does comfort me as I seek God's guidance on how to deal with such atrocities. When I notice the little things, a sunset, a laughing baby, or a fawn dancing in my backyard, I know that the world won't be perfect, but I am renewed in the faith that God will always be in control, in spite of of what we think or do.  Slow down, look around, and see them for yourself, find your own renewal.

Olivia