As anyone reading this blog knows, I love reflections – all kinds of reflections – the visual, the mental, and the spiritual.  And, there are those rare times when they all come together in a kind of holy trinity – like yesterday.

Not wanting to be on the road with thousands of others for the Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to “shelter in place.”  (Love that image from the hurricane warnings!)  The time was lovely, the weather beautiful, and it offered many opportunities for reflections.

We had time for walks and talks, music and reading, cooking and eating, talking with our family back home, and photographing, of course!

So, yesterday, at Little Falls, I was stunned by the beauty of a simple reflection.  How wonderful for nature to offer not just one image, but the reflected and intensified image in the reflection!  It was almost as if the picture were clearer in the reflection!  And I thought about how we only really know ourselves through reflections.  They can be thoughtful and prayerful reflections, or they can be reflections offered by a good friend who knows us well and can reflect back to us what we are saying or doing, thereby allowing us to see the truth in our own nature.  It is true that we only really know what we look like from the reflection in the mirror.  Is it any wonder that we only really know ourselves if we can receive the thoughtful reflections of friends and family?

And, if we are best known in reflection, how then can we know God?  In the reflected beauty of the landscape, perhaps?  Or, in the face of a loved one, the smile of a stranger, or the unrestrained laughter after a shared story?  God is reflected in all things.  We have only to acknowledge the grace to see the Creator in creation.

Reflections are grace.  Look for them to see more clearly what is real.