Simple Beauty

It's Sunday evening and like many around the world I'm struggling to make sense of the violence that just occurred in Paris.  Many others have written pieces far more powerful and eloquent than I could ever write and it's been interesting to read the vastly differing viewpoints on the challenges our world faces.  As is my tendency, when things get beyond my ability to comprehend, I turn to the simple beauties all around me.  The little things that require me to slow down and pay attention.  The things that require silence to contemplate and assimilate into the recesses of my brain.  Eventually, I find myself accepting the reality that I'll never be able to fully understand certain things to any real degree of intellectual satisfaction.  That's the struggle for me, and as a newly minted 50 year old, I think I'm finally okay with these struggles.  I haven't given up, rather I've embraced a collective truth that I've seen to exist - that there is beauty all around, even in the midst of immense tragedy.  My responsibility, as I know it and as small as it may be, is to always bear witness to those simple and beautiful moments where ever they manifest.