We don’t get to keep what we strive for. Comfort is replaced by pain. Fortune is replaced by loss. Every moment and person passes on.

It seems the worse thing than pain, loss or sorrow is the attempt to control them. Even clinging to beauty causes an aching inside. In all things, I am trying to be more fluid, like I am underwater where thoughts and feelings are beautiful fish I cannot catch. They swim in and they swim out.

On a walk yesterday, I came to this ethereal scene where the branches of a Willow tree had grown long enough to touch the surface of the lake, like slender fingers swaying back and forth in the gentle waves. Under the canopy there was a mass of blooming milkweed, now mature and turning the most perfect hue of muted plum. Every insect with wings was gathered for a garden party. The sun just behind a cloud was casting this amazingly soft, hazy light. And a solo Wood Duck was enjoying the view from the opposite side of the shoreline.

I thought, “Heaven.”

I wanted to stay forever and noticed that I felt sad. I felt sad that I would have to continue on my walk, choose to leave it behind, trade it in for maybe a barking dog or screaming baby in a passing stroller.

So I took this photo. Captured it. Forever.

Except it’s only a photograph. It’s not the moment. You can’t see the ripples in the water or smell the scent of the blooms or hear the buzzing of the bees or the whispering that trees make in the breeze. I never had this moment before. And I will never have it again.

The image doesn’t bring it back, but it reminds me to keep walking because there’s probably another heaven just around the corner.

YOUR TURN

Sunday Service is a recurring community feature and you are invited to join the party!

Regardless of faith, prayer is a beautiful thing. It can be grateful, it can be joyful, it can be a question, it can be a song. This is a place where your writing can be your prayer, an open door for higher wisdom to ‘runneth over.’

Use the post to the right as an invitation to write your own Sunday Service or capture an image that elicits a stirring in your soul. Keep it short, make it washed in your truth. Write it for you, not for us.

But then share it with us. Trust us. Your words are important to us.

Post your writing or a link to your writing/photo in the comments below.

Or, if you share on social media, use the hashtag #sundayservice to allow us to find you, follow you, sing with you.