Gloom and Glory

Saturday, April 11, 2020

There is a lot of gloom in the world today, due mostly to the spread of the coronavirus, but I still insist on looking for the glory as much as for the gloom. On our walk this morning, we passed this little, lovely tree

blossoming behind a fence in its simple, glorious way. Yes, the virus is scary, and yes, scarcity and sickness and danger and dying seem to be spreading like an irrepressible storm, but still, here, on an almost silent street in Mystic, there is the filled-to-the-brim glory of this small, shining tree. And, too, there’s the simpler, more homespun glory of the fence, and of course the commanding glory of the blue spring sky. I can’t ignore the gloom, because it’s real and needs to be acknowledged, but so does the glory that is still, amid the darkness, illuminating life the world over.

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We also passed this storefront window

which brought to mind Emily Dickinson’s uplifting poem, perfect for this season of the virus: