7:30 BELLS: Halos on a Foggy Road

Sometimes the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.  One night this week, I drove through the fog after a long, difficult day. Right now, my life seems lost in fog, too—I can’t see far down the road. After an hour on the freeway, I was almost home. Then, through a tree’s bare branches, I saw a street lamp 's shining halo. And beyond it, fainter, a second halo.
 
This is beautiful I thought. Stop.
 
But I was tired. It was late. I was distressed. And then I thought, what better time to stop for beauty than when you are tired and distressed? Isn’t that when we need uplifting and heartening most?
 
So I stopped. As I looked, the street lamp halos became mysterious beacons beckoning through the fog.  But the fog itself was making the mystery. Maybe that’s true of the difficult moments in our lives, too. When we can’t see our road clearly, we're wrapped in a moment of mystery that might inform our way forward.
 
Then I understood something more important:  I was making the mystery. Because I stopped to see it. Because I made room for it. Only then did the bells began to softly ring. I was the mystery, and I could become the beacon.


Heartened, I drove toward home.

 LORE OF THE BELL

Be the mystery and become the beacon