For about three hours yesterday, we had one of those amazing mornings here in Chicago. The air was crisp and cold, but not frigid, as temperatures hovered just below freezing. But the sun…the sun was brilliant and the sky was this amazing winter blue that I’ve only seen in Chicago and Vermont. The red, yellow and baby blue panels of window glass on the south wall of my office radiated a Technicolor glow in that corner of the office as I prepared for a committee meeting about raising funds for one of our programs.

And with an almost jarring suddenness, the glow from the windows disappeared, replaced in a matter of moments by the kind of wan, matte finished light that I have come to equate with the gray days of a Chicago winter. A new front was pushing through. In a few hours there would be a scattering of flurries that would leave not a single trace when they touched the ground, evaporating in almost the same instant they melted on the sidewalks, still warmed by the memory of the brilliant morning.

Life is like that sometimes, the invigorating clear, cool, brightness giving way in a matter of moments to a flatness, where shadows might disappear, but the light that is present is so diffused as to give no clue as to the time of day. It is a kind of limbo time, when flurries of memories, or thoughts, or plans, or even fears present themselves, but evaporate when they meet concrete thought.

Yesterday was that kind of day for me. And now, as I sit here this morning, I remain in one of those flat gray moments. My father lies in a hospital 1100 miles away, waiting for test results that at best will mean major cancer surgery, and at worst could mean something too awful to contemplate.

It is not that I have no hope, it is not that I have no joy…it is not that I’m not praying. It is the in-between time. I know the sun will shine again and the chill will be chased from every corner in time. But what will come first….the arctic blasts that make each breath a labor?....the blizzard that will blind for a while, but with enough digging and plowing can be made livable again?....or will the hopeful sun defy predictions and burn away the grey uncertainty?

The day will tell, the earth will turn…