the last...

It's the last Tuesday of the year, I just realized. For a few more days I'm home in Alaska, nearly as surprised to be here as people were to see me. The usual mix of familiarity and lostness finds me here... In the quietness of a snowy Christmas all the months and weeks have come tumbling to the bottom of this long year. And my heart aches with something I can't quite describe.

When you dig deep under sadness, you find a different sort of joy, I think. The joy of unexpected reunions with people you can't possibly deserve, memories you only believe because you lived them, bewilderingly normal sights like little African boys in snowsuits and seeing angels on both sides of the world...

If you drink deeply of life you will find it...

:: "The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy." – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory