I’m high! I’m drunk with beauty! I’m over the moon!

This morning I took a three-hour walk in the park. It is the Friday before the New York City Marathon, and people are everywhere, speaking every language on the planet, excited to be in one another’s company.

 They are preparing to run,                       

preparing to watch, preparing to be supportive.

They are playing,

talking, 

and getting lost.

And they’re all beautiful.

In an article called “Reclaiming Godly Wonder,” in the new issue of Reflections, Yale Divinity School’s journal, author Thomas H. Troeger writes:

"Godly wonder means for me a state of prayerful astonishment awakened by the Spirit of God through the experience of beauty.”

Funny how beauty inspires astonishment, which inspires gratitude --gratitude that I get to be a tourist, witnessing the most remarkable beauty, in the city where I live.