This past summer my wife and I visited Ireland. It was a great opportunity for me to take a lot of pictures. I have been taking detailed pictures of flowers for my wife. She paints with watercolors and wants a catalog of flowers for reference. So I took quite a few pictures of flowers while I was there. But I also took many other pictures. I can almost hear the water falling on this rock. We were visiting some of the sacred places in the area of Ireland where we were staying. The water is flowing over a man made dam. We walked several miles of Saint Kevin’s Way and this is the end of of the walk in Glendalough. It was nice to be out in the countryside. I felt like we truely got a sense of the land.
This picture reminds me that there times in my life when the waters are still. It is a time to reflect upon where I am in life without the turmoil that so often surrounds us. I often dwell on the turmoil so much that I move through the calm waters without even recognizing it. Sometimes I long for peace without realizing that I am in the midst of it.
There were a number of discoveries for me on this trip. These pictures reminds me that there is a persistence to life that endures through everything that pours down upon us. And that although sometimes thinks seem stormy and we can’t seem to get out from under the storm there are other times when we can just be. Some of things invigorate us and help us to grow. Other things just wear us down. Through it all we persist and we endure.
