The peaceful side of Los Angeles

I love sunsets.  Everything about a sunset ignites inspiration and peace inside my soul.  Most recently, I spent a few precious moments over the course of three evenings watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, my toes digging into the sand under cool water that lapped up to soak my jeans up to my knees.  I walked along the tide and with each step, prayed that the next would precede another, and then another, for many more steps than I actually took.  Those three evenings vanished, like bird prints in the sand under the quick rise and fall of the tide.  As fast as the sun sinks into the ocean's depths, so too were my hopes that those evenings might each last a lifetime, kept warm by the blazing brilliance of the southern California sun.

While independently magnificent, sunsets are like any other miracle of the heavens:  more enjoyable when shared.  I've spent a good many evenings considering life's blessings, questions, and purpose.  Each time, as the sun sets on another day, I look ahead with joy to a time when I can share my life with someone else, the days numbered in sunsets.  It's twice as exhilarating to stand in the sand and gaze into the sky with the comfort of a close by companion than to fall under it's awe alone.

I don't really know why sunsets sing such a mesmerizing tune to me except that looking west my entire life, I've seen the majestic Rocky Mountains and hundreds of breathtaking sketches and pigments over those peaks.  Blue, silver, pink, orange, red, yellow, or any combination thereof.  Sunsets in Colorado can bring your feet to a stop and your eyes into focus that the world we live in is so much bigger than our nano-measured lives.  Some of the best sunsets have been over blazing forests and the destruction that comes from ash and cinder thrust into the sky.  Indeed, Colorado's skies are breathtaking and tell stories of life and sorrow beneath them.

My blog is about what's in my mind as each day draws to a close.  It's about the things that are loudest in my mind at night and the things I hope for with each new morning.  One of the two most painful days of my life was defined by a sunrise.  My heart was broken and I wandered out to an early September dew-covered pasture in the mountains where I greeted the sun as it took hold of the day.  I cursed the sun for rising in audacity that morning because my world felt dark and still, but that sun didn't miss a beat and rose with power and heat like each day before and every day since.  The other extremely painful day of my life was shared with a sunset as I sat next to the river in Breckenridge and wondered what it's all for anyway.  My heart bled and the same sun that rose with passion five years earlier gently dropped, quietly subdued to the rush of the ice cold river at my feet.

I guess one could say that the sun's awakening and slumber are two of the most reliable occurrences any of us can imagine.  So, it's when I'm unsure of life or question myself, I tend to look to God's creations as reminders that He is still, unchanging, and bravely near without exception.  I see God when I see the sun and even as it sets each day, the lullaby sung to me in it's radiance is a promise that I will wake to His loving compassion and deep, wide mercies.