When I Look

I sit on my rooftop. I am able to see the dome of St. Matthew's Cathedral and the Washington Monument when I look to the left. I am able to see the National Cathedral when I look to the right.

The sun is in the western sky now. The sunbeams are warm against my skin. It is July. Sitting and listening to jets ascending into the clear blue sky, listening to the brief, sad falsetto of the city bus breaks being applied, and feeling the cool, breeze touch my skin and the pages of my books.

Right now I am alone on the rooftop. I hear few sounds other than the city buses and the building machinery on the neighboring building. The shadows on the concrete please me. There are no distractions, I am thinking.

Silence and solitude can be dangerous. Thinking can be dangerous. Reflection can be dangerous.

Writing the word dangerous can be very humorous and liberating.

Faith wants us to look inside ourselves, to have an experience that starts in one place and ends in an entirely different private place. Faith encourages and inspires us to carry it to those private places in our hearts in order to allow it to become more personal, more natural. For faith to flourish it must be organic, not forced. It must simply occur.

Faith is irrepressible, necessary, nurturing. There is something definitive yet anonymous about faith which makes it so beautiful, so unifying.

Silence can be calming. Silent reflection allows me to find peace. At some point, I cease to hear my own voice, to think of my problems. Briefly, I just exist, free of every distraction.

I believe that faith encourages us to test ourselves, to move beyond the comfortable and the safe. I could just think these thoughts. That would be the safe thing to do. But sharing them is a little scary.

In our actual daily lives we present the transparency of shared relationships, the singularity of private thought and vision, and the artistry of love. All of these can combine and encourage us to look carefully both inward and outward.

Religious convictions can allow a certain independence from modern hedonism and nihilism. I like the humble heroism of being compassionate, forgiving, merciful. I like encouraging my instinct to do good, to be respectful.

It is a pleasure to think of one aspect of faith.

The sun has gone. The outline of the National Cathedral is visible against the peach colored western sky. There are people around me drinking beer, talking about frozen margaritas, talking of former girlfriends moving to town and looking for places to live, talking of dinners being purchased. There are people laughing, people remembering. A couple sits near me; the woman reads a thick paperback while the man coughs, reads his perfectly folded newspaper and looks nervously toward the sunset.
I sit here quietly thinking, not actually listening.

The evening air is brisk, my arms are getting cold. The lights have come on. In the distance I can hear a siren.

I silently say a prayer.