To Who Knows Where...

The morning is veiled in fog.  Soft gray blurs the prairie grasses near at hand and dissolves the tree line beyond.  After the successive waves of snowfall in recent weeks and the bitter cold of the past few days, the sudden winter warmup is inviting the intemperate air and all the resident moisture on the ground to dance.  It is beautiful, mysterious...

...and treacherous.  The drive home last night from an outing with friends was treacherous, with visibility extending only occasionally beyond the hood of the car.  We inched along slowly; grateful for the absence of traffic behind us, and for the occasional Sherpa-like taillights guiding from ahead.  The turn onto gravel toward home off the county road was more hypothesis than certainty, but our creeping caution successfully compensated for our lack of confidence.  Finally turning into our driveway, and easing into our garage, we pulled ourselves into the house, slumped wearily onto the sofa and offered silent prayers of thanksgiving for our safety.  It was foolish to be out; a gift to be home.

Today, however, the fog feels more evocative than dangerous — like a Holmesian mystery set among the murky back streets of London.  Anything can happen.  Clearer-headed in the light of day, the prudent are sitting tight.  The roads remain deserted and the airport is closed.  As a sequel to this week’s polar vortex-imposed paralysis, nature has devised yet another mechanism for slowing us down; for summoning us to stillness.  Suddenly there is time to think, to process into insights the data that has windrifted against the fencelines of our consciousness.  Finally, a moment for creative, reflective brooding.  How long we will acquiesce remains to be seen — restlessness has a way of overriding our caution — but only thrill-seeking fools bluster ahead full throttle with their eyes closed.  The more prudent pause, squint discerningly into the mist, and only then pick their way slowly into the ambiguity.  Inevitably, some will sneer at the caution; but it isn’t timidity that fuels the hesitation, rather sagacity.

What, then, shall we do?  How might this wisdom nourish and instruct us rather merely frustrate?  It would be a helpful discipline to learn, after all, for while there are those blessedly clear, blue sky intervals when it seems like we can see forever, in a metaphorical sense fog is more ubiquitous than sun.  It is delusion to think the way ahead in life is obvious or clear.  Most of our steps are best guesses; more intuitive than sure.  On a good day — the sunniest, most cloudless day — the furthest horizon is not actually that far away.  We hypothesize where to turn and best guess at what’s ahead, but finally we walk by faith and not by sight.  We are flying...or creeping...blind.

But caution is prudent; patience, ennobling There is something to be said for pacing our steps, bowing to visibility, and leaning forward with humility...

...to who knows where.