Today is so cool and comfortable. The sky is full of cigar smoke colored clouds, occasionally parting and giving an opportunity for the azure blue sky to peek through. When the sun’s rays break through, she bleaches the tops of the light gray clouds snow white, making my view of the sky so pretty. My yard is filled with dozens of purple finches and cardinals, all loudly and busily going about their breakfast feeding. A few doves and a few titmice and chickadees are enjoying the flower garden bird feeders. Never seen a dove on a feeder but she managed to perch on the large sunflower feeder and enjoy her breakfast, too.

I’m sitting in the swing after eating my bagel and the rain starts pouring down, straight as an arrow, and I’m loving sitting in the swing and watching the silver raindrops splashing on the red porch tile. No wind to blow the rain on me and drive me back in the house. The grass seems to be greening right before my eyes. Rain never deters the birds, they just keep on keeping on. The little finches got wet and they look a little bedraggled. Before the rain started I saw a huge eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly dancing through the yard in the cool breeze, stopping for a tea party on a bright orange zinnia. I love the beauty of the butterflies.

Been thinking on this quote today by Thornton Wilder from The Bridge of San Luis Ray. “We ourselves shall be loved for awhile and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

A bridge bring two separate things together, joins and connects them, sends us on a journey towards something new. The bridges of love in our lives shape and define us. Never really thought about it but when a loved ones dies, our love for them doesn’t die with them. Our love keeps growing and stays alive in our memories, a bridge to our loved ones. Rumi, a 13th century poet said, “Love is a bridge between you and everything.”

Love is more than an emotion. It’s a force, binding us to each other and to the world. Love always has an element of worship, uniting us with each other and with God. Dolores Cannon said, “Love is the most powerful force in the universe.” Let’s change her quote to God’s love is the most powerful force in the world. If we accept God into our hearts, we can build a bridge over any obstacle that falls in our path. We can navigate life with the bridges God helps us build. Job 11:16, reads, “Your troubles will go away like water beneath a bridge.”

Bible scripture says Jesus is the bridge between heaven and earth. Jesus said, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9).

“He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.” — George Herbert