"You Are So Blessed"

18 July 2012
6:50 PM

Sunrise at	4:05 AM	in direction	30°	North-northeast
Sunset at	11:47 PM	in direction	330°	North-northwest

Civil Twilight all day

I posted a photo on Facebook that prompted my Colorado friend, Dawnetta Winters, to assure me of my blessed state.  Assuring me of my graceful existence within the universe of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscient was a blessing in itself.  Yes, I am blessed.

My tendency is to enumerate blessings as if they are possessions which I can gather up and place in strategic spots around my home to give otherwise dark corners a spark of color and light.  The hazard in that approach to gratitude - for me - is the moment I begin to list blessings, duality steps in and those aspects of life that may not be as wonderful provide an unbidden and unwanted contrast.  But they are there just the same.  Life is not wholly wonderful and not wholly terrible.

Yet, I am blessed.  There is no doubt of that in my being.  I am blessed and Alaska, I think, illustrates my relationship with a state of grace perfectly.  I accept the portions of life here in order to glory in what is beyond compare.  I accept long winters in order to glory in spring, summer, and fall and pristine snow the rest of the year.  I accept deep cold in order to chase views of auroras in winter.  I accept living with dark days so I can witness the special qualities of light at this latitude.  I accept life with mosquitoes so I can smell the wildflowers and poplar trees in early spring and summer (some days the aroma is so heady my sense of smell can barely gather it all in).  I accept that there are only four major roads in all of Alaska because where those roads take me are like nothing anywhere else in the U.S.  I accept the lack of urbanity in Fairbanks because quite frankly, who needs it?

And .. here is the photo that prompted Dawnetta to offer a song of praise ...

A nearby field

... and another that I had overlooked on my camera.  It is one of those views, easily seen along the road between Anchorage and Fairbanks that fills me with gratitude, overflowing gratitude, that I have the opportunity to live here.

The Alaska Range singing its own praises