Thoughts of varying depth and clarity

The moon is just an all-around cool thing. Tonight as I came out of Starbucks it was about halfway from zenith in the west, a perfect bright little crescent. Earlier in the summer I slept with my shade open a crack. I woke about one in the morning with the full moon shining right on my face. I don't think I've ever slept in a puddle of moonlight before. I hope it happens again.

It is good when one spends one's time either working, playing, or resting. Most happy activities seem to fall into one of those categories: or more. (Like worship. I think the philosophers were rather silly to wrestle with whether duty or pleasure is more meritorious. Equating work with what one ought to do, and play with what one wants to do, what's really best is when your duty becomes your pleasure: when the will of your Father becomes your will, too. We are commanded to worship, but we worship better when we want to. Worship seems to partake of work and play and rest. To be sure, there is honor in fighting to do right despite what one wants, but you fight to make all of you want what part of you wants. If no part of you wanted, even indirectly, you wouldn't fight.) What is not good is doing nothing without resting: boredom, which is tellingly near "restlessness."

I like the way light comes in bigger lights and little lights. Sunlight is awfully good, and so are fluorescent lights and skylights and big fixtures that flood one's entire area with brightness, but there's something about candles, little 25-watt lamps, the moon, stars, and twinkly Christmas lights, too.

Rain is an ambiguous symbol. Usually it connotes depressingness, like "raining on my parade," but when one lives in a dry and weary land where there is no water, one rejoices at it. While I was at work today it rained. And we rejoiced. This evening the air in the valley was clear, washed by the rain, and the mesas glowed and the distant mountains gleamed blue, blue, rarest blue.