The sun had shifted and it wasn't anymore the white light of early afternoon that has no trace of melancholy, the short shadows of noon skies, the blared-out blues, the flaccid clouds, the time of day that doesn't ask to be remembered. Now oranges were emerging and the thistles could be distinguished among the taller grasses as the shadows lengthened.~Amy Seek (From God And Jetfire)

You never know what you'll find at the Dollar Tree. I'm partial to the package of ten 32-count diamond "strike on box matches" for the candles I like to burn. I also like the "Little Trees" black ice-scented air fresheners that I hang in my car, package of three. Flashlights and gorilla glue, lip gloss and Sour Patch Kids. What really amazes me though, are the books I find--hardbacks with paper covers, published by Alfred A. Knopf with a retail value of $25 US and $34 Canada. And there they are in the very back of the Dollar Tree buried on an obscure shelf next to the children's coloring books and neon-pink jump ropes. I sometimes wonder what the author with a PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London, and an honorary fellow of the London School of Economics and St. Antony's College, Oxford, would think if she knew her words landed in the back of a Dollar Tree in South Carolina. Would she feel humiliated? Or would she be pleased that such a gorgeous treasure is available to a Dollar Tree customer such as myself?

My Dollar Tree book find got me to thinking about other enigmas and mysteries that often take me aback--the vibrancy of a freshly cut peach resting on a cutting board, sunlight pouring through a window on an unmade bed in the early morning; a neighbor's wave and smile of recognition on a cloudy, rain-pocked day; a Ukranian man playing his cello amdist his bombed out city; an old Christmas card found in the drawer with a friend's familiar handwriting that says, "I believe 2022 will be a gift to us."

Perhaps these are the paradoxical ways of God. It seems He enjoys inserting beauty and elegance, life and significance, in the shrouded spots--where we get surprised, then overjoyed. Things like a manger birth and the cross. Resurrection after the unspeakable. May we keep looking for Him in all the days that don't ask to be remembered.