I am so fortunate! I am truly blessed because at 87 I am still capable of walks on the beach. My mind has not failed - neither have any of the senses - though the mind does play more tricks than it use to. However, that might be a diatribe for another entry. All of this verbiage is by way of preamble to a description of another walk on the beach. I especially like to go down to the beach at Juno just before sunset. The air is cool, the pink and lavender evening light spotlights waves as they break against the sand, and the eastern sky above the Atlantic glows with variations of intensity based on atmospheric conditions at the time.

After walking a short distance, I stand or sit at water’s edge and shoot picture after picture, trying to capture the perfect moment, a visual surfer of the waves. Of course, I understand that I can’t steal the moment, which I think is one of the reasons people take photographs. Instead, each moment is like the particles of sand on the beach, a moment strewn upon the shores of time, different than, yet the same as the other random grains of sand, each a gift to the individual who walks there. It has been suggested by some philosophers that the universe has no purpose, that all of space and time is an accident. If this is true, it becomes the responsibility of each thinking human being to make purpose as we walk on our beach. I believe that should we do so, we will discover God and our own reason for being.

As an artist, I also believe that part of my purpose on this earth is to present that which I discover to others who tread upon the infinite grains of sand on this beach called life. At the same time, I am not my artistic talent because like the random grains of sand, it is an accident. Should I present that which I see to others, they will perceive that which they understand and not necessarily my vision of this world. Never the less, should two or more of us try to realize completely what it means to be human, we will be able to share some part of the vision. Perhaps we might learn and grow in understanding of the beach upon which we walk.

If we should all do so, there would be no hate, no evangelical Christians, just Christians, there would be no war in Iraq, and there would never be another nine-eleven.

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