It was my idea to spend the night in Newport for our anniversary; and not drive home after dinner, which we could easily have done. Because even though I had a very nice walk on the Cliffwalk yesterday afternoon, it was this morning's hike there and back from the hotel that I most enjoyed. The news on the front page of the newspaper my husband brought to breakfast was on my mind. It was overcast and warm and so windy, I tried to let my mood of worry and concern and frustration blow away over the cliffs by the sea. A few minutes of forgetting bad news sometimes is a kind of refreshment. And then I crossed the campus and saw the chapel's stained glass windows and stopped to admire them from outside. I wanted a better, more intimate, more satisfying look. So, I tried the big wooden door, and was surprised to find it unlocked, and I walked into the empty, unlit sanctuary, and spent some time in the quiet chapel standing and gazing through the colors of the glass in the natural morning light. It helped my mood, my spirit, to have entered the sanctuary and listened for a voice. Tonight, as I write about this daily walk, the fresh news is worse and worse of tragedy, of gun violence, that has no hope of ending soon. I want the peace of the sanctuary; I want the pink glow of the glass in my sight. 

All photos and text ©Kelly DuMar 2018