Mid-Summer Evening

For when one considers the universe, can anyone be so simple-minded as not to believe that the Divine is present in everything, pervading, embracing and penetrating it?

--St. Gregory of Nyssa

The mid-summer evening light, inexpressibly golden, blue shadows, the radiance of red and yellow sunflowers and the solemn, conciliatory cypresses.  Ripeness, after the rains, under a dappled sky.  As if kindness shades nature itself: all the simple shapes of the garden, the neighborhood.  A time of healing, of forgiveness, of restoration.  A time for believing all things, trusting in all things, hoping all things.  A time of silence and contemplation, emptiness, and the fullness of grace.  Silence.