Just a short note to share an experience and a memory. Today I went out to our deck to contemplate. Usually I mix a little prayer with a meditation on some aspect of life, then try to move to what I call contemplation: just sit with God—being aware of His presence—and experience what’s true and loving. Today I woke early and went out before dawn.

I wasn’t lucky. My mind wandered one place, then another. As daylight came, I noticed a small movement in the woods so I began to concentrate on that. Soon I saw the shape of a deer. Total silence, little light. It moved. Then I spotted another, at first thinking the second was very small, but it wasn’t. Then a third and a fourth. They watched me intermittently as they bowed to eat. Little by little they moved away, and as more trees and bushes came between us, their shapes and movements faded into the woods.

Then I remembered our first trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, about 47 years ago. Barbara and I were traveling to Oregon and we planned a brief side trip to the Canyon. Clouds accumulated as we approached the Canyon, and by the time we arrived at a lookout point, clouds and mist filled the space before us. We peered into a grey nothing and waited. Silence. A few minutes passed and the clouds parted briefly to let us see down and across the Canyon—amazing view. Then the clouds merged again and all was grey. This sequence repeated two or three times. Finally we gave up and left.

Two days many years apart, two visions that wouldn’t stay, two periods of silence and wonder. I figured God was around both times and I chalked up today as a success.