It's been an odd week for me, six states in ten days (close to two thousand miles, not one on an airplane). Translation: I spent a boatload of time in a rental car, with a boatload of time to cogitate.

My week began in Northern Indiana (Victory Noll Retreat Center, Huntington), the landscape an endless horizon of cornfields, still unharvested, the stalks acorn brown. I pointed my rental car north, toward Michigan's Upper Peninsula, drinking in the progression of autumn color along the way toward Lake Superior. I had time with my Father. We began each day with breakfast at deer camp (his home-away-from-home, heated with an antique wood-stove/oven), an ATV ride from his house into the woodland, and only a stone's throw from the Ottawa National Forest. (I will concede that this menu is neither found nor endorsed by any diet book.) After a few days, like the flocks of Canadian geese who escorted me on the way, my rental car headed back south, down through Wisconsin (passing on the temptation to buy cheese trinkets) and to a reunion dinner with a friend in Chicago. Again through Indiana, this time in a driving rainstorm--a heavenly show and tell--with thunder and lightening, and the night sky erupting with a rippling light spectacle. On to my weekend in Cincinnati (Transfiguration Retreat Center) where we talked about living our days from sufficiency instead of scarcity.

In case I wasn't clear, I'm not a enthusiast for road trips, so I confess that my attitude is dictated by an agenda--an impatience to cross another state line, and cross another milestone off the list.  

No, it's not easy to savor the scenery when you have an agenda.  

And yes, I don't always practice what I preach.  

Which means that surprises are nice. Like the view from Brockway Mountain Drive, above Copper Harbor Michigan; below a sea of autumn color framed to the north by Lake Superior's cobalt blue.

I discover that driving long distances creates an ideal container for musing, which, somehow, in a rainstorm deluge, morphs into existential angst, questioning everything about life and the pursuit of happiness; an opportunity to weigh and measure, and find some reason why I've come up short on this road toward success. Lord help us and down the rabbit hole we go... So, just before the precipice of self-pity, I crank up my friend Bruce, and sing along; This Little Light of Mine, and smile, and laugh out loud.

To know that, even as a single snowflake, there is enough. In fact, there is abundance. The retreat group this weekend reminded me of this truth, and I gladly sent them forth, to know that one touch means the world.  

You may doubt it if you wish. But know this, you still make a difference.

On the ferry ride home tonight, the sun is setting beyond the Olympic Mountain range. Back-lit, the entire range is art done in charcoal. And to the south, the moon--a day or two shy of full--shines down on Tacoma harbor. I breathe in the night air.