It took an act of GOD
I lived in the woods for a quarter-of-a-century. Trees were my first love. I knew it would take an act of God to get me out of the woods.  And it did.

Trees have their own special way of exposing color, transposing the sunlight into a million shades and hues a human cannot re-create.

But I have a new love. Sunsets. For Christmas my daughter gave me some new chairs that fit perfectly into the small alcove in front of the high-arched window in my upstairs office. I've grown to love the view up there. It transforms me every time I walk into the room, as dusk approaches.  I look out at the twilight sky, sitting in my new chairs ... my goodness, it is breath taking.

My view is not from a majestic mountaintop or the shore at the mighty expanse of the ocean; nor from a vast desert or a beautiful city skyline -still it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Last night was not one of those nights where a spectacular scene unfolded. Most people probably drove on to their destinations totally unaware of the sky.

But they missed something.

The Stopping Point
It was mostly a dreary, gray-blue sky but as the time came for the sun to hit that certain point of the horizon, a vibrant orange-rose color shot up. It arched over the earth presenting a beautiful contrast to the events of the day and said: STOP.

The tufts of clouds higher up reminded me of a tie-dye fabric I'd once used for a Girl Scout project. But it was not a simple pattern. The formation moved along ever so slightly. Looking more closely, the contrast of the movement of the clouds to the lines of the window panes, I saw it was all moving so much faster than I'd expected.  I'll never look at the sky in the same way.

A few months of nightly watching the transition of late afternoon, to evening, to dusk, to night has changed me. Such beauty that's as multifaceted as our fingerprints or the patterns of a snowflake. Amazing.

And peaceful.

There's so Much More
As evening approached I had a call from a mom. She told me of the years she's searched for answers. Her son is smart, and works oh, so hard, but never seems to catch up in reading, writing.... She wonders what it's going to be like when he goes to middle school and the work gets tougher. And relationships become more complicated. He looks like a kid who is smart. Someone who should be able to get it but the teachers can't understand ... because after all, they're only teaching the same way they learned. If they learned this way, why can't he?

But as I looked at the gray winter sky at the end of a very cold day and saw the tie-dye tufts of fabric-puffed-up-sky floating along I thought to myself about the sky. Isn't it just a dark dreary night? No.

Even in the least likely of places, like the winter sky, there is such majestic beauty.

Forgive me for comparing a child to a bleak wintry sky because in the children we have a light that shines brighter than almost any other we could possibly know; our hope, our future and our promise.

But if you could only hear the voices of the parents who call me, seeking answers to their questions about the children that many have given up on, you would understand just what I'm talking about.

I know tomorrow, or maybe the day after, the sun will shine again. And I also know that there's all the reason in the world why the young man I just told you about can find the dawning of a new way of learning and life for himself.